Covid-19 Coronavirus Pandemic Pushes U.S. Unemployment Toward Numbers Not Seen Since The Great Depression

Politico: Unemployment claims top 26 million 5 weeks into pandemic

A five-week wave of massive layoffs caused by the coronavirus pandemic continues.

Americans filed 4.4 million jobless claims last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, pushing the five-week total of coronavirus-driven job losses to more than 26 million.

The new report, which covers the week ending April 18, lent plausibility to economists' prediction that the unemployment rate will by summer be within range of the 25 percent peak recorded in 1933 during the Great Depression.

"All else equal, job losses of this magnitude would translate into an unemployment rate of 18.3 [percent]," said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

Fitch Ratings predicted Wednesday that the U.S. GDP will shrink by around 6 percent this year.

As of April 11, roughly 71 percent of those who have filed have received benefits, according to Andrew Stettner, senior fellow at the progressive Century Foundation.

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Update #1: Virus pushes US unemployment toward highest since Depression (AP)
Update #2: Millions of Americans join unemployment line as coronavirus savages economy (Reuters)

WNU Editor: The projected 6% GDP drop is based on the pandemic ending within the foreseeable future. The last time the U.S. economy shrank that much was after the Second World War where the economy shrank by 11.6.% in 1946.