US unemployment swells toward 1930s Great Depression levels
● More than 4.4 million laid-off workers applied for benefits last week
Unemployment in the US is swelling to levels last seen during the Great Depression of the 1930s, with one in six American workers thrown out of a job by the coronavirus.
More than 4.4 million laidoff workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, the US Government said. In all, roughly 26 million people – the population of the ten biggest US cities combined – have now filed for jobless aid in five weeks.
It is an epic collapse that has raised the stakes in the debate over how and when to lift the state-ordered, stay-at-home restrictions that have closed factories and other businesses from coast to coast.
In the hardest-hit corner of the US, evidence emerged that perhaps more than two million New Yorkers have been infected by the virus – several times higher than the number confirmed by lab tests.
A small, preliminary statewide survey of around 3,000 people found 13.9 per cent had anti-bodies suggesting they had been exposed, Governor Andrew Cuomo said. Just in New York City, with a population of 8.6 million, Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said many as one million may have been exposed.
Abroad, there was mixed news about the epidemic. Some countries, including Greece, Bangladesh and Malaysia, announced extensions of their lockdowns.
Vietnam, New Zealand and Croatia were among those moving to end or ease such measures.
In Africa, Covid-19 cases rose 43 per cent in the past week to 26,000, according to John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The figures underscored a recent warning from the World Health Organisation that the virus could kill more than 300,000 people in Africa and push 30 million into desperate poverty.
Huge lines have formed at food banks from El Paso, Texas, to the Paris suburbs, and food shortages are hitting Africa especially hard.
The European Union has pledged €20 billion (£17.5bn) to help vulnerable communities globally. EU leaders scheduled a virtual summit yesterday to take stock of the damage the crisis has inflicted on the bloc’s own citizens and to work out an economic rescue plan.
The coronavirus has killed over 184,000 people worldwide, including about 47,000 in the United States, according to a tally compiled by John Hopkins University from official government figures. The true numbers are almost certainly far higher.
In the US, the economic consequences of the shutdowns have sparked angry rallies in state capitals by protesters demanding that businesses reopen. US president Donald Trump has expressed impatience over the restrictions.
Some governors have begun easing up despite warnings from health authorities that it may be too soon to do so without sparking new infections. In Georgia, gyms, hair salons and bowling alleys can reopen from today. Texas has reopened its state parks.
Few experts foresee a downturn as severe as the Depression, when unemployment remained above 14 per cent from 1931 to 1940, peaking at 25 per cent. But unemployment is considered likely to remain elevated well into next year and probably beyond, and will surely top the 10 per cent peak of the 2008-09 recession.
“The question is not whether there will be a second wave,” said Dr Hans Kluge, the head of the WHO’S Europe office. “The question is whether we will take into account the biggest lessons so far.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticised some German states for moving too briskly in trying to reopen theireconomies.germanyhas been praised for its approach to the pandemic and has a much lower reported death toll than other large European countries.