US weekly jobless claims double to 6.6 million
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The torrent of Americans filing for unemployment insurance continued last week as more than 6.6 million new claims were filed, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That brings to 10 million the total Americans who filed over the past two weeks.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones estimated 3.1 million, a week after 3.3 million filings in the first wave of what has been a record-shattering swelling of the jobless ranks. The previous week’s total was revised higher by 24,000.
Stock market futures gave up most of their previous gains in the morning but still pointed to a slightly higher open on Wall Street.
On an unadjusted basis, the total was 5.8 million, a number that some economists consider more relevant as seasonal adjustments are less relevant due to the unusual impact the coronavirus-induced shutdown has had on the U.S. economy.
The 4-week moving average, which smooths fluctuations, was 2.054 million, up 327,250 from aw eek ago and the highest since Jan. 14, 2017.
Before the coronavirus shut down major parts of the U.S. economy, the highest week for claims was 695,000 in 1982. The Great Recession high was 665,000 in March 2009.
However, the sudden stop as the government has instituted social distancing policies caused a cascade of joblessness unlike anything the nation has ever seen.
“We’ve lived through the recession and 9/11. What we’re seeing with this decline is actually worse than both of those events,” said Irina Novoselsky, CEO of online jobs marketplace CareerBuilder.
Every state reported an increase in claims for the week ending March 21. The biggest in terms of total filings were Pennsylvania (362,012), Ohio (189,263) and Massachusetts (+141,003). The smallest gains came in South Dakota (1,571), West Virginia (2,671) and Vermont (+3,125).
The recently approved rescue bill in Congress allows workers to stay on unemployment longer and also expands the scope of those who can receive benefits.
At a profession level, the biggest groups looking for works are bartenders, athletic coaches and wait staff, according to CareerBuilder. Taxi and truck drivers along with food prep workers and supervisors also are high on the list.
“Minorities are being disproportionately affected in the displacement,” Novoselsky said. “So a lot of the positive wage differential that we’d seen shrinking over the past 10 years both from females and African-Americans, we’re going to see some of it going away.”
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Our economy begins to crash, as the death toll escalates.
Our economy was artificially puffed up by irresponsible tax cuts for the rich and big corporations plus Trump was spending like crazy. Interest rates are already unsustainably low. What do we do? Print trillions and trillion of new dollars. Whoopee! High unemployment and runaway inflation cannot be far behind. The damn gop always tanks our economy. It is like clockwork.
This has nothing to do with the China virus?
Did everyone get that?
Well XDM, we know your plan for the future sucks, since it includes a second Trump presidency.
You want to reinvest in the US.... How about we go back to the tax structure prior to the 2003 tax cuts?
No, can't do that, the rich need their tax cuts so they can pay their CEOs millions/billions and they need to do stock buy backs...can't piss off the "job creators"...they need 10 more luxury cars and 5 more mansions....
And here comes the old whataboutism, so lame...time for new material
I paid more in taxes than Trump for year...
"Trump admits not paying taxes for years".
So you're saying Trump lied, and Maddow caught him?
Why can't you see the correlation to tax cuts and the reduction of money in circulation available to the middle class as being regressive.
Simplify it... The game of Boardwalk. The game is good when everyone is in it and everyone has money to buy and sell. The game stops when all but one has any money.
1.2.13 JBB
Yup, tRump and his administration are looting the treasury as fast as they can
That's all they got lady
Trump brags about not paying taxes: ‘That makes me smart’