A new analysis released Tuesday shows that more U.S. workers filed unemployment claims last week than during any other week in the nation’s history.
An estimated 3.4 million Americans filed such claims for the week ending March 21, according to the findings from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
“This will dwarf every other week in history,” wrote EPI’s Aaron Sojourner and Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, adding, “The true impacts are undoubtedly of larger scale than described here.”
SEE IT: Feeding Our Future fraudsters bought mansions and Mercedes with $250M in stolen meal funds
Progressive powerhouses launch primary war against Democratic establishment ahead of 2026 elections
Good News for Charlie Kirk’s Family: Legal Expert Says Evidence Against Robinson Is ‘Strongest’ He’s Ever Seen
38-Year-Old Able-Bodied Man Irate After Losing Food Stamps Under Trump
After Australia passes social media ban lawmakers probed on why Congress hasn’t done more to protect kids
DHS to focus on arresting illegal immigrants with serious offenses amid negative polling on ICE raids: report
Justice Department sues Fulton County to obtain records related to 2020 election
Georgia woman hospitalized after attacker hurls corrosive chemical during evening walk
EXCLUSIVE: Inside Trump’s private schedule as media fixates on his health
Obese man on death row chooses buffet of BBQ, wings, cheeseburger, pizza, ice cream for last meal in Georgia
Florida influencer, 41, accused of inappropriately touching, exposing herself to teenage son’s friend
Republican House leader signals plan to begin contempt proceedings against Bill and Hillary Clinton
Watch: Tim Walz Tries to Make Somali Fraud Scandal Seem Perfectly Normal, Blames Trump for Talking About It
Elon Musk Sets Newsom Straight on ‘Trans Kids’ After Governor’s Office Attacks Musk’s Family
James Carville Criticizes Jasmine Crockett’s Senate Bid, Says She’s Too Self-Centered to Win
The startling calculation—based on claims in 35 states and Washington, D.C. and extrapolated to the other 15 states—comes as the nation continues to experience a rise in cases of the novel coronavirus—with over 46,000 confirmed as of Tuesday—and as ordinary Americans feel the economic and societal impacts of the crisis, with schools, stores, and work places temporarily shuttered, varying degrees of lockdowns in place, and households and frontline workers still wondering if lawmakers will put their urgent needs above those of corporate America.
A graph accompanying the new EPI analysis, which is based on data from news reports from March 15 to March 21, illustrates the enormous jump in unemployment claims—even if the actual figure ends up being on the analysts’ low-end projection of 3 million claims. At no other point in the timeline shown does the figure even scrape 1 million.
Reaction to the findings was stark:
SEE IT: Feeding Our Future fraudsters bought mansions and Mercedes with $250M in stolen meal funds
Progressive powerhouses launch primary war against Democratic establishment ahead of 2026 elections
Good News for Charlie Kirk’s Family: Legal Expert Says Evidence Against Robinson Is ‘Strongest’ He’s Ever Seen
38-Year-Old Able-Bodied Man Irate After Losing Food Stamps Under Trump
After Australia passes social media ban lawmakers probed on why Congress hasn’t done more to protect kids
DHS to focus on arresting illegal immigrants with serious offenses amid negative polling on ICE raids: report
Justice Department sues Fulton County to obtain records related to 2020 election
Georgia woman hospitalized after attacker hurls corrosive chemical during evening walk
EXCLUSIVE: Inside Trump’s private schedule as media fixates on his health
Obese man on death row chooses buffet of BBQ, wings, cheeseburger, pizza, ice cream for last meal in Georgia
Florida influencer, 41, accused of inappropriately touching, exposing herself to teenage son’s friend
Republican House leader signals plan to begin contempt proceedings against Bill and Hillary Clinton
Watch: Tim Walz Tries to Make Somali Fraud Scandal Seem Perfectly Normal, Blames Trump for Talking About It
Elon Musk Sets Newsom Straight on ‘Trans Kids’ After Governor’s Office Attacks Musk’s Family
James Carville Criticizes Jasmine Crockett’s Senate Bid, Says She’s Too Self-Centered to Win
This chart, holy shit https://t.co/luqjZ4ngsh pic.twitter.com/NeCbcOY1aw
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) March 24, 2020
Sojourner and Goldsmith-Pinkham, both research associates at EPI, put the projection into the context of the nation’s unemployment rate:
For scale, consider that 3.4 million Americans moving from employment to unemployment would raise the number of the unemployed from 5.7 million to 9.1 million. This alone would raise the unemployment rate by more than half, by 2 percentage points from 3.5% to 5.5%, moving back to 2015 levels in just one week. This spike represents 2.2% of all jobs in the economy. The largest monthly rise in the unemployment rate in American history was plus 1.3 percentage points in October 1949.
SEE IT: Feeding Our Future fraudsters bought mansions and Mercedes with $250M in stolen meal funds
Progressive powerhouses launch primary war against Democratic establishment ahead of 2026 elections
Good News for Charlie Kirk’s Family: Legal Expert Says Evidence Against Robinson Is ‘Strongest’ He’s Ever Seen
38-Year-Old Able-Bodied Man Irate After Losing Food Stamps Under Trump
After Australia passes social media ban lawmakers probed on why Congress hasn’t done more to protect kids
DHS to focus on arresting illegal immigrants with serious offenses amid negative polling on ICE raids: report
Justice Department sues Fulton County to obtain records related to 2020 election
Georgia woman hospitalized after attacker hurls corrosive chemical during evening walk
EXCLUSIVE: Inside Trump’s private schedule as media fixates on his health
Obese man on death row chooses buffet of BBQ, wings, cheeseburger, pizza, ice cream for last meal in Georgia
Florida influencer, 41, accused of inappropriately touching, exposing herself to teenage son’s friend
Republican House leader signals plan to begin contempt proceedings against Bill and Hillary Clinton
Watch: Tim Walz Tries to Make Somali Fraud Scandal Seem Perfectly Normal, Blames Trump for Talking About It
Elon Musk Sets Newsom Straight on ‘Trans Kids’ After Governor’s Office Attacks Musk’s Family
James Carville Criticizes Jasmine Crockett’s Senate Bid, Says She’s Too Self-Centered to Win
Grim as the scenario painted by the analsis is, reality may be even worse. The researchers wrote that the actual tally of claims “could be substantially higher.” Not all unemployed workers are able to file unemployment insurance claims either, and for those that do, they’ll get about half—or less—of their regular income. The end of the coronavirus crisis is also not in the immediate future.
All that points to the need for the federal government to provide states with more aid.
“American working families are paying a large price through no fault of their own,” wrote Sojourner and Goldsmith-Pinkham. “But there is no shortcutting public health to get the American economy back to work. A healthy economy requires public health.”
Story cited here.
