Unemployment Claims Hit 6.6 Million. It’s Officially Worse Than the Great Recession.

More than 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending March 28. That’s a record-breaking number of unemployment claims for the second week in a row, and way more than analysts were projecting for last week.

The actual number of claims was “more than double the estimate of 3.1 million analysts expected,” points out CNBC correspondent Eamon Javers. “The American job market is in free fall.”

In the two weeks ending March 28, 9.9 million people filed for unemployment benefits.

At the peak of Great Recession joblessness in 2010, “there were 7.7 million more officially unemployed people than before the downturn,” noted Atlantic writer Derek Thompson.”The labor market is contracting at the rate of one Great Recession per 10 days.”

Before March 2020, the highest number of unemployment claims filed in a single week was 695,000.


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