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30 million Americans have lost their jobs in 6 weeks

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Millions of Americans are out of work amid the coronavirus crisis, and we still don’t know the full picture.
More than 3.8 million peoplefiled initial unemployment insurance claims during the week ending April 25, according to data released by the Department of Labor on Thursday morning. That brings the total number of people applying for benefits over the previous six weeks to more than 30 million.
It’s a staggering number of people who have filed for unemployment since the coronavirus pandemic triggered nationwide shutdowns and a severe economic downturn weeks ago. In late March, the Labor Department registered 3.3 million jobless claims in a single week, shattering previous records. And each subsequent week, the figures released are of a magnitude that would have seemed unimaginable months ago: 6.9 million,6.6 million,5.2 million,4.4 million. By comparison, the previous record was 695,000 in 1982.
Preliminary unemployment numbers from the full month of April will be released on Friday, May 8, and provide a fuller picture of the damage the crisis has done to the American job market. But the next unemployment report is sure to be ugly: The US economy shrank by 4.

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