The U.S. economy lost 20.5 million jobs in April while unemployment rose to 14.7%, the Department of Labor reported on Friday morning. It’s the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression.
“This is the highest rate and the largest over-the-month increase in the history of the series (seasonally adjusted data are available back to January 1948),” the report said.
The unemployment report indicated that the vast majority of April’s job losses — roughly 90% — are considered temporary, a result of businesses that were forced to suddenly close but hope to reopen and recall their laid-off workers.
Whether most of those workers can return anytime soon, though, will be determined by how well policymakers, businesses and the public manage their response to the health crisis.
The collapse of the job market has occurred with stunning speed. As recently as February, the unemployment rate was a more than 50-year low of 3.5%, and employers had added jobs for a record 9 1/2 years. In March, unemployment was just 4.4%
The last time unemployment was this high was 1939, at the tail end of the Depression.
As bad as the numbers are, they don’t capture the full devastation wrought by the business shutdowns.
The Labor Department said its survey-takers erroneously classified millions of Americans as employed in April even though their employers had closed down. If they had been counted correctly, the unemployment rate would have been nearly 20%, the government said.
I for one am still not tired of all the winning!
Only 14.7% unemployment in what is a lagging indicator (real rate is probably over 18% at this point). Another couple months of Trump’s “leadership” and I am figuring we will hit 25% unemployment with another 10-15% having had major pay cuts.
As Kudlow would say “prices are looking cheap, time to buy stocks…”
(to be clear, this is snark. No one should ever follow Kudlow’s investing advise.)
At 14.7%, we now have the highest unemployment rate since the U.S. first started tracking it in 1948. What’s more, things will almost certainly get far worse over the next couple of months. Even so, the stock market appears to be rallying, at least for now.
But wait there’s more…
Round 2 of Covid-19 due to gross negligence and stupidity
Still Trying to Kill the ACA. People dying in the streets will be a good look
That is a winning combo
The scandal of a combo of the Fed and Menuchen pumping $$$$s to major wheeler dealers/traders has gotten very little coverage. Basically lots of free money was given to businesses/investors, and they are playing with it in the stock market as there is nothing else to do with it.
Meanwhile everyone else is getting screwed, with no help. The contrast is just shocking, and the help for the investor/CEO class is doing nothing to help the underlying businesses or jobs.
But as the wave of salary cuts and job losses washes over the economy, businesses are going to find it very hard to make payroll w/o sales, and the game of musical chairs is going to come to an end, with something like $4-5T in money from the Fed/Treasury having been blown on propping up stock prices.
I can’t predict we make it through November, but that is what Trump is trying to do.
Editing to add this link:
Reporting that Biden sees the same issue that I do, and is instructing people to attack Trump “Cronyism”
This is really Trump’s weakpoint. Trump does well with the “un-educated” who think that he is a rich businessman who is good at business and is ON THEIR SIDE. He has conned them with social issues and propoganda TV, but also playing off the American Trope of “business people know how to run things, create money, politicians steal”
Showing that Trump is infact a bigger thief, and is helping out his “richer than him friends” (see Romney, Mitch 47%) is one of the best ways to attack him.
OT. WTAF?