Unemployment has skyrocketed in the first week of the coronavirus crisis, leaving over 3 million without jobs:
FOX 8 – A record number of Americans filed for their first week of unemployment benefits last week, as businesses shut down to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Initial jobless claims soared to a seasonally adjusted 3.28 million in the week ended March 21, according to the Department of Labor.
That is the highest number of initial jobless claims in history, since the Department of Labor started tracking the data in 1967. The previous high was 695,000 claims filed in the week ending October 2, 1982.
Last week’s jump marked a massive increase from a revised 282,000 claims in the prior week. Prior to the pandemic, initial claims had been hovering in the low 200,000s each week, reflecting a strong job market.
That’s a lot of job losses in one week. And you can bet it’s just going to increase as more businesses are forced to let workers go as they wait for emergency funding from the government.
Just these unemployment claims alone would increase the unemployment rate from 3.5 to 5.5%.
I checked to see if Trump responded to the huge spike in unemployment and thus far he hasn’t tweeted anything.