More than 16 Million Americans Have Filled Jobless Claims in the Last 3 Weeks

The number of people filing unemployment benefits in the United States is continuously rising. In the last three weeks ending April 4, more than 16 million people have registered for unemployment benefits.

 Economists of the country expect around 20 million job losses in April as measures to curb coronavirus are forcing businesses to close shops, which is leading millions of people out of work. 

Weekly new claims have been rising at a rapid pace. For the second continuous week, around 6 million Americans have filed for jobless claims as the coronavirus devastates the economy of the US.

The weekly jobless claims of Thursday from the US Department of Labor, which is the most on-time data on the health of the country’s economy strengthens the prediction of economists that job losses in the US in the month of April could reach 20 million. The firmly held conviction is that the economy of the nation is in a deep recession. 

Claims for State Unemployment Benefits

For the week ending April 4, the Department of Labor reported more than 6.6 million filed cases for unemployment benefits. The data presented that 219,000 more applications for jobless claims were received as compared to the previous week, which raised the number for that period to 6.86 million. Since the week that ended on March 21, more than 15 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits. 

Senior economist at Glassdoor Daniel Zhao, said, “In its first month alone, the coronavirus crisis is poised to exceed any comparison to the Great Recession.” He further said, “The new normal for unemployment insurance claims will be the canary in the coals mine for how long effects of the crisis will linger for the millions of newly unemployed Americans.”

The surprising fact is that the only in three weeks coronavirus pandemic has put more people out of work than the Great Recession did in two years.