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The dire number of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States economy continued unabated last week, as three million other people applied for unemployment benefits, totaling more than 36 million in the past two months.
The latest figures from the labor department show that the claims rate is slowing, but the record pace of layoffs has already brought unemployment to levels never seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. For comparison, only 188,264 unemployment claims in the same week in 2019.
This week, the Department of Labor began publishing figures for those eligible to apply for benefits under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program (PUA), a federal unemployment scheme established for self-employed workers and workers like drivers. Uber customers who previously had not been eligible to file a claim (ie. Some 841,995 people filed claims under the PUA for the week ending May 9.
Some states have begun to relax quarantine rules and open more businesses, a trend that is likely to help reverse some recent job losses. But many states are still grappling with an overwhelming backlog of claims, so the true number of job losses is still underrepresented by government figures.
Those already financially vulnerable have been the most affected by the quarantine closings. On Thursday, the Federal Reserve released a report detailing who has been affected by the economic crisis. Fed President Jerome Powell said: “While we are all affected, the burden has fallen more on those less able to bear it.”
According to the report, nearly 40% of households earning less than $ 40,000 had experienced job losses.
Of the 19% of Americans whose hours were cut or lost a job in March, 8% said medical costs would discourage them from seeking care if they had symptoms of coronavirus. The report showed that before the pandemic, 25% of adults said they skipped healthcare in 2019 because they couldn’t afford it.
The findings were part of a Federal Reserve annual report on the economic well-being of American households. Before its launch, the agency conducted a second survey to reflect the dramatic change in the United States economy due to the pandemic.
Among those who experienced a job loss or reduced hours in March, 64% said they would be able to pay all of their bills, in full, in April, compared to 85% of those whose employment remained the same.
“Recognizing that the April supplement was sent out relatively soon after families began to experience the financial repercussions of Covid-19, these results may not reflect the full extent of the financial difficulties that will result from the pandemic,” the report said.
Despite the unprecedented job loss, nine out of 10 Americans who were suspended or lost their jobs told the Federal Reserve that their employer indicated that they could return to their job at some point, although 77% of them did not have a return date.
Last week, the Labor Department said some 20 million people had lost their jobs in April, as the unemployment rate soared to 14.7% from just 4.4% in March. Figures show that the largest increases in unemployment were suffered by those with no college education, African Americans, and Latinos.
Jilma Guevara was fired in late March from her job as a security officer for a contracted company in the cargo area of the Miami airport in Florida and is concerned that she will not be able to return to work even when things reopen.
Guevara says she tried to organize her fellow security officers in the cargo area when her company was not giving her and her coworkers the proper protective gear. They fired her, but others with less seniority (Guevara has worked for the company for six years) continue to work.
It took Guevara’s unemployment claim a month to successfully pass the Florida system and receive payments. Although he has the support of friends, he cannot support his family in Nicaragua and is concerned about how much longer he can go without a job.
“I am concerned that I will not be able to pay much of the rent,” Guevara said in Spanish through a translator. “I think I was fired because I was trying to organize my workers, so I see my future very dark without much hope.”
