36.5 Million Have Filed For Unemployment In 8 Weeks

Avie Schneider

May 14, 2020 / 5:33 am

caption: Closed signs are seen Wednesday in businesses in Milwaukee. The coronavirus pandemic has left millions out of work.

Nearly 3 million people filed for unemployment benefits last week — bringing the total to 36.5 million in the past eight weeks, the Labor Department said Thursday.

Updated at 9:07 a.m. ET

It's the latest sign of the economic damage from the coronavirus crisis. The unemployment rate shot up to 14.7% last month — the highest level since the Great Depression. In February, before the coronavirus shutdowns took hold, unemployment was at a nearly 50-year low of 3.5%.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell painted a grim picture for the economy.

"The scope and speed of this downturn are without modern precedent, significantly worse than any recession since World War II," he said. A Fed survey found that nearly 40% of workers in households making less than $40,000 a year had lost a job in March, Powell noted.

The economy shrank at a 4.8% pace in the first quarter of 2020, but analysts are forecasting a double-digit drop in coming months.

The numbers are staggering, but since spiking in March — to a record high of 6.9 million — initial jobless claims have now declined for six weeks in a row. They fell by 195,000, or about 6%, in the most recent week ending last Saturday. [Copyright 2020 NPR]