As the coronavirus pandemic continues to cripple the world, the US economy seems to be worsening by the day – especially in terms of unemployment. According to the latest reports, as many as 30 million Americans are now unemployed and have filed for benefits.
Over the last two weeks, the unemployment filings have been 4.4 million and 3.8 million respectively. Though the recent trends suggest that the numbers are declining every week, the total number of unemployed Americans has now touched the massive 30 million mark. Morgan Stanley speculates that the projected unemployment rate will stand at around 16.4% by May 2020.
Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation commented, “The COVID-19 crisis has made us accustomed and de-sensitized to previously unthinkable phenomena, but today marks a tough reality for our country and for American workers. The real question now is how many of these millions of workers flooding into state unemployment systems make it out to the other side with a payment.”
The unemployment figures to sore high last month, when the entire country of the USA was put under lockdown by President Donald Trump, in order to stop spreading of the dreaded COVID-19.
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Recently, Trump suggested to re-open certain sections of the economy of May 1. However, the idea was deemed too outrageous by many business leaders and health experts. The WHO has also stated that lifting lockdown to re-open the economy in this scenario would be somewhat similar to trading lives for livelihood.
Projecting the future economic scenario, Dante DeAntonio, an economist at Moody’s Analytics stated, “Based on recent unemployment insurance claims and the expectation for a near-complete freeze in hiring, it is not unrealistic to think that the economy may lose 20 million jobs or more in April alone. It is becoming clear that estimated employment losses over the last month will be the largest in history, by a long shot.”