US jobless claims reach 26 million

1 in 6 workers have lost their jobs in 5 weeks, Labor says

WASHINGTON — More than 4.4 million laid-off workers applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week as job cuts escalated across an economy that remains all but shut down, the government said Thursday.

Roughly 26 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the five weeks since the coronavirus outbreak began forcing millions of employers to close their doors, the Labor Department reported. About 1 in 6 workers have lost their jobs in the past five weeks, by far the worst string of layoffs on record. That’s more than the number of people who live in the 10 largest U.S. cities combined.

Economists have forecast that the unemployment rate for April could go as high as 20%.

The enormous magnitude of job cuts has plunged the U.S. economy into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Some economists say the nation’s output could shrink by twice the amount that it did during the Great Recession, which ended in 2009.

An urgent question for the unemployed is how quickly the economy may rebound. Most economists expect some employers to start rehiring within months, though significant job gains aren’t considered likely until later in the year.

Few experts foresee a downturn anywhere near as long as the Great Depression. During the Depression, unemployment stayed high for nearly a decade, with the jobless rate remaining above 14% from 1931 to 1940.

But unemployment is considered likely to remain elevated well into next year and probably beyond.

The painful economic consequences have sparked protests in several state capitals from crowds insisting that businesses be allowed to reopen.

Some governors have begun easing restrictions despite warnings from health authorities that it may be too soon to do so without causing new infections. In Georgia, gyms, hair salons and bowling alleys can reopen Friday. Texas has reopened its state parks.

Yet those scattered reopenings won’t lead to much rehiring, especially if Americans are too wary to leave their homes. Most people say they favor stay-at-home orders, according to a survey by The Associated PressNORC Center for Public Affairs and believe it won’t be safe to lift social distancing guidelines anytime soon.

The number of people who are receiving unemployment benefits has reached a record 16 million, surpassing a previous high of 12 million set in 2010, just after the 2008-2009 recession ended. This figure reflects people who have managed to navigate the application systems in their states, have been approved for benefits and are receiving checks.

Women make up a majority of workers in some industries that have been hit hardest, such as health care, where many jobs outside hospitals have been lost, and hotels and restaurants.

Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute, calculates that 56% of the layoffs have involved women. “As in all recessions, job loss in this recession is not being meted out equally,” she said.

African Americans and Latinos are typically among the first to be laid off in recessions. Though the government doesn’t track the jobless claims data by gender or race, a survey by the University of Southern California found that 21% of African Americans and 18% of Latinos say they have lost jobs in the past month, compared with 15% of whites.

One factor in that disparity is the ability to work from home.

A study by the Center for American Progress found that whites are more than twice as likely as blacks to say they can work from home and 50% more likely than Latinos.

Just about every major industry has absorbed sudden and severe layoffs.

Economists at the Federal Reserve estimate that hotels and restaurants have shed the most jobs — 4 million since Feb. 15. That is nearly one-third of all the employees in that industry. Construction has shed more than 9% of its jobs. So has a category that includes retail, shipping and utilities, the Fed estimated.

A federal relief package enacted last month made millions of gig workers, contractors and self-employed people newly eligible for unemployment aid.

But most states have yet to approve unemployment applications from those workers because they’re still trying to reprogram their systems to do so. As a result, many people who have lost jobs or income aren’t being counted as laid-off because their applications for unemployment aid haven’t been processed.

Among them is Sasha McVeigh, a musician in

Nashville, Tennessee. Having grown up in England with a love of country music, she spent years flying to Nashville to play gigs until she managed to secure a green card and move permanently two years ago. She had been working steadily until the city shut down music clubs in mid-March.

Since then, she’s applied for unemployment benefits but so far has received nothing. To make ends meet, she’s applied for some grants available to out-of-work musicians, held some livestreaming concerts and pushed her merchandise sales.

By cutting expenses to a bare minimum, McVeigh said, “I’ve managed to just about keep myself afloat.”

But she worries about what will happen over the next few months.

HOUSTON COFIELD/THE NEW YORK TIMES A man enters an unemployment office April 9 in Forest City, Arkansas, as states scramble to deal with a deluge of claims.