As expected, America’s unemployment crisis deepened, jobless claims data out Thursday showed.
The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits surged by 5.245 million last week, slightly below estimates, but still a dire figure to be sure.
This marks the fourth consecutive week of claims hitting levels unseen in the history of modern economic statistics. There’s a sense in which the fortunate will become numb to these figures, but it’s important not to lose track of the fact that this week’s newly-unemployed are no less “real” than those who lost their jobs and filed last month, when the crisis first began to spiral.
Last week’s figures were revised higher to 6,615,000.
Thursday’s numbers bring the four-week total to more than 22 million. Let that sink in for a moment. 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in the space of just four weeks.
This suggests the unemployment rate is somewhere around 17%, sharply higher than the worst days of the financial crisis more than a decade ago.
As ever, it’s important to put this in context. There is no historical precedent for these figures. If you were somehow not apprised of the circumstances, they wouldn’t even make sense. They would not compute.
The pre-COVID record for a single week was in 1982. To say it doesn’t measure up would be to grossly understate the case.
If there’s a silver lining here (and there really isn’t, or at least not in an absolute sense), it’s that the trend is lower. That is, claims have fallen for two weeks in a row, which I suppose means it’s conceivable that the peak was on March 28.
That’s useful information for market participants looking for a light at the end of the tunnel or, perhaps more aptly given the bounce we’ve already seen, a green-light to add upside exposure to stocks.
But make no mistake, for the people these figures represent, this is a very long tunnel and most of them have just entered it.
The purchasing power of 22 million workers gone in 1 month. Impossible to wrap your arms around that number and it isn’t over!
It’s a depression, BUY STONKS!!!
And then there are the millions more like me, small business owners who have zero income, expenses continuing, and not eligible for unemployment or the SBA payroll protection plan. Neither counted nor helped.
So true. Same boat here. Disaster.
@Caribbean Breeze Sorry to hear, what is your plan and how much longer can you ride this out? Why do you not qualify for the PPP funds?
Privateer, I have a small S corp and pass through the profits, no actual payroll or other employees. I and some friends in similar situations qualify for and applied for the SBA grant program, but no one I know has heard anything back on it in weeks. I’ll be ok, fortunately my wife works in healthcare so her income is fairly safe. I’m still a little young to be feeling like I’m retired though. 🙂
The US has 4.25% of the world population, but 31% of the world’s confirmed COVID-19 cases.
So we’re #1. So much winning. He said we’d beg him to stop all the winning. Ok, he was right. I’m begging him to stop!
#maga