UPDATE: 6.6 Million More Americans File For Unemployment Amid COVID-19 Financial Crisis
The unfortunate reality: About another 6.6 million Americans filed unemployment benefit claims for the first time last week as workers continue to suffer from devastating job losses, furloughs and reduced hours because of the coronavirus pandemic.
RELATED: UPDATE: Unemployment Filings In The US Hit 6.6 Million Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
As we previously reported, for the week ending March 21, nearly 3.3 million people filed new unemployment claims, which shattered the previous record set in 1982 of 695,000. However, just last week, that figure doubled, as 6.6 million people filed claims for the week ending March 28: a figure that was revised upward to 6.9 million in the new release, according to the Department of Labor’s Thursday update.
It was the second-largest number of initial unemployment claims in history since the Department of Labor started tracking the data back in 1967. Altogether, over 14 million American workers have sought aid in the form of jobless benefits since mid-March.
“So far, jobless claims look to me like the only limitation on the number of applications has been the states’ ability to process those claims,” said Darrell Cronk, a chief investment officer of Wells Fargo Wealth and Investment Management.
As ABC News reports, just a few months ago, the unemployment rate in the U.S. was near a 50-year low.
RELATED: US Unemployment Claims Soar To Nearly 3.3 Million Amid Coronavirus Pandemic