The cratering continues apace:
The U.S. Labor Department released fresh data on Thursday morning that showed the effect of the novel coronavirus on employment in the U.S. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits spiked to a record-breaking 6.648 million for the week ending March 28. Consensus expectations were for 3.76 million claims. The prior week’s figure was revised higher to 3.307 million claims from 3.283 million. Prior to the week ending March 21, the previous record was 695,000 claims filed the week ended October 2, 1982.(click on image to enlarge)
Expect this to continue for the indefinite future, unfortunately.
As much as you are able, please be generous and kind to those who need help.
BONUS: An epic screw up is approaching tomorrow for small businesses that need loans to survive:
"Banks are warning that a $350 billion lending program for struggling small businesses won't be ready when it launches Friday because the Trump administration has failed to provide them with the necessary guidelines and set requirements for the loans that are unworkable." (our emphasis)As we saw with the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, these clowns are dangerously incompetent.
BONUS II:
So how bad is it? Unemployment is very likely at or very near 10% right now. That would match the depths of the Great Recession.— Tony Dokoupil (@tonydokoupil) April 2, 2020
It jumps about a point for every 1.5M jobs lost, so if we lost nearly 10M jobs in the last two weeks, that’s a 6.6 percentage point jump.
