As expected, the unemployment carnage is continuing because of government-mandated lockdowns. Another three million filed for unemployment last week bringing the total of unemployed up to 36.5 million since the lockdowns began.
CNBC:
New filings for unemployment claims totaled just shy of 3 million for the most recent reporting period, a number that while still high declined for the sixth straight week, according to Labor Department figures Thursday.
The total 2.981 million new claims for unemployment insurance filed last week brought the coronavirus crisis total to nearly 36.5 million, by far the biggest loss in U.S. history. The count announced last week count was revised up by 7,000 to 3.176 million, putting the weekly decline at 195,000 between the two most recent reports.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting the latest count of new claims to be 2.7 million.
It is worth reiterating that these numbers only capture people who have successfully filed unemployment claims. There have been all sorts of problems with state unemployment websites, so we can probably expect millions more to file unemployment in the weeks to come.
There are also millions of people who have been forced out of work who are not eligible to file for unemployment. So those people are not captured in these figures.
These numbers are truly staggering. Half the country is probably already out of work right now.
I hope all of you are getting prepared for what’s to come. Only the strong will survive in this new world that we are entering.
