The unemployment rate shot up to 14.7 percent in April, its highest level since the Great Depression, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
U.S. employers shed 20.5 million jobs in April as small businesses struggled to access hundreds of billions that Congress appropriated in an attempt to stem layoffs.
The dire, but expected, jobless rate all but confirms that the U.S. economy has entered a recession that will eclipse the Great Recession of 2007-9 as the worst downturn since the 1930s, even if recovery is swift, as few economists anticipate.
“It’s fully expected. There’s no surprise. Everybody knows this,” President Donald Trump said in initial reaction to the numbers on “Fox & Friends.” “Somebody said, ‘Oh, look at this.’ Well, even the Democrats aren’t blaming me for that. But what I can do is I’ll bring it back.”
The government data likely understates the damage, as the figures in the jobs report come from surveys conducted the second week in April. The nearly 33.5 million new unemployment claims filed over the past seven weeks suggest many more could be out of work, and the many self-employed workers and others newly eligible for unemployment benefits aren’t included in that figure. Thirty-one states have updated their systems to start paying benefits to this group, but 21 of those states implemented the new program only in the last two weeks.
To be counted among the unemployed in the survey, a worker must be looking actively for work, something many people aren’t doing because of the pandemic.
The latest data indicates that women and minorities, who represent a large part of the service sector labor force, have taken the brunt of the losses.
Some 16.95 percent of women in the labor force have lost their jobs since February, according to an analysis of the unemployment data by POLITICO. Black Americans are facing an unemployment rate of 16.7 percent.
The leisure and hospitality industry, which lost nearly half its jobs in two months, was ravaged the most by the pandemic, according to the government data.
Of those out of work, 18.1 million reported being on temporary layoff in April. Some 2 million permanently lost their jobs.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts the annual unemployment rate will this year be 11.4 percent and remain above 10 percent through 2021.
In Washington, Democrats and Republicans are sparring over how quickly to advance another round of coronavirus relief. Lawmakers have infused billions of dollars into the battered economy, sending direct payments to more than 80 million Americans and offering small businesses forgivable loans if they keep workers on the payroll.
But Republicans say they are hesitant to move forward with another package until they see the effects of the earlier measures they have passed.
“Of course, no one is saying we should do nothing. We’ve been quite busy,” U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Fox News Thursday. “Now we need to carefully begin to reopen our economy. That may or may not involve another rescue package. It could well happen.”
Meanwhile, House Democrats are rushing to finalize a multi-trillion dollar coronavirus relief bill, hoping to put it on the floor as early as next week.
Allan James Vestal and Quint Forgey contributed to this report.
Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/08/april-unemployment-rate-coronavirus-244280
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Rebecca Rainey
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