Despite more parts of the country beginning to slowly reopen following the widespread coronavirus outbreak, unemployment claims continue to skyrocket. In a recent report, over 2 million additional unemployment claims have been filed—bring the total to almost 40 million since March.
For almost 10 weeks, millions of Americans have filed for unemployment benefits. Nationwide layoffs and furloughs continue to cripple the U.S. labor market, as many scramble to find ways to financially support themselves despite currently being out of work.
Another 2.4 million Americans filed for first-time employment benefits, according to the Department of Labor. This brings the current U.S. total to 38.6 million who have filed within the past three months. For a little mathematical breakdown, that translates to 23.7% of the March U.S. labor force.
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The Department of Labor also announced that more than 2.2 million people in 35 states within the last week have filed initial claims for the pandemic unemployment assistance program.
However, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development later clarified that just under 116,000 residents submitted first-time claims for the pandemic program last week, not the nearly 1.2 million listed on the federal agency’s press release, the error was due to an issue with the data entry.
Elsewhere, over 6 million Americans in 27 states have filed jobless claims under the pandemic program in the week ending May 2, a spike of more than 2.7 million in seven days. California had the highest number of residents who filed continued claims, with almost 1.8 million.
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