Unemployment Nears 15 Percent

On Friday, the Labor Department announced that the U.S. economy lost 20.5 million jobs in April, bringing the unemployment rate to 14.7 percent, nearly 50 percent higher than the Great Recession’s peak unemployment rate of 10 percent in 2009.

As The New York Times points out, the only period in American history that saw greater job losses was during the Great Depression, when the unemployment rate reached 25 percent.

Economists are not projecting a swift recovery, The Times said, but President Trump offered a more optimistic outlook.

> But in an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Friday, President Trump predicted the economy would come roaring back after the “artificial” closing.****“Those jobs will all be back and they’ll be back very soon,” Mr. Trump said, “and next year we’re going to have a phenomenal year.”

Even if jobs do return quickly, damage from the initial shock could stick around for a long time, with workers struggling for years to regain “the bargaining power that was beginning to bring them faster wage gains and better benefits before the crisis,” The Times said.

The dire report comes as little surprise to anyone paying attention to the ongoing economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Still, it’s difficult to grasp the magnitude of a decade of job gains wiped out in a single month. If the jump to 14.7 percent feels a little abstract, the Times’ unemployment graph puts the impact in stark perspective.

Worse, as the crisis drags on, layoffs that were initially meant to be temporary may become permanent. When the Labor Department surveyed workers in mid-April, about 18 million said their layoff was temporary, compared to 2 million who said their job loss was permanent, but permanent layoffs are expected to escalate through May.