Roughly two weeks ago, the labor department revealed that 3.3 million Americans were forced to file for unemployment due to the coronavirus epidemic. Today (Apr.2), the labor department has released new numbers, and things have gotten significantly worse.

The Labor Department is now reporting that 3.3 million number has vastly doubled, and a staggering 6.6 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits. The number blew away the estimated 3.1 million claims and show the economy is collapsing faster than initially predicted.

Per CNBC:

The torrent of Americans filing for unemployment insurance skyrocketed last week as more than 6.6 million new claims were filed, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That brings to 10 million the total Americans who filed over the past two weeks.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected 3.1 million for last week, one week after 3.3 million filings in the first wave of what has been a record-shattering swelling of the jobless ranks. The previous week’s total was revised higher by 24,000.

Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, believes the numbers could be even worse due to people not being able to file their claims.

“Sadly, this probably still underestimates the actual numbers because of the overload in the systems and not every call getting through. Even if we’re accurately calculating the numbers, we still likely have worse to come.”

To put things in perspective and point out just how bad this is, Irina Novoselsky, CEO of online jobs marketplace CareerBuilder says:

“We’ve lived through the recession and 9/11. What we’re seeing with this decline is actually worse than both of those events.”

Yikes.

Minorities are also feeling the brunt of the impact during these hard times. Novoselsky points out:

“Minorities are being disproportionately affected in the displacement. So a lot of the positive wage differential that we’d seen shrinking over the past 10 years both from females and African Americans, we’re going to see some of it going away.”

The sad part of all this is the fact we are still in the beginning stages of this coronavirus shut down with no real end in sight. We can only hope the relief from the recently passed $2 trillion rescue bill that will allow workers to stay on unemployment longer will provide a buffer long enough for Americans to weather the storm.

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Photo: da-kuk / Getty

Source: HipHopWired.com

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