Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Unemployment Rate Hits High Last Seen During Great Depression With 14.7% Of Americans Out Of Work
The Associated Press: Jobless Rate Spikes To 14.7%, Highest Since Great Depression
The U.S. unemployment rate hit 14.7% in April, the highest rate since the Great Depression, as 20.5 million jobs vanished in the worst monthly loss on record. The figures are stark evidence of the damage the coronavirus has done to a now-shattered economy. The losses reflect what has become a severe recession caused by sudden business shutdowns in nearly every industry. Almost all the job growth achieved during the 11-year recovery from the Great Recession has now been lost in one month. (Rugaber, 5/8)
CNBC: A record 20.5 million jobs were lost in April as unemployment rate jumps to 14.7%
A more encompassing measure that includes those not looking for work as well as those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons also hit an all-time high of 22.8%. That reading may be a more accurate picture of the current jobs situation as millions of workers are being paid to stay home and thus not willing or able to look for new jobs. The jump in the “real” unemployment rate reflected a plunge in the labor participation rate to 60.7%, its lowest level since 1973. (Cox, 5/8)
Reuters: Coronavirus Deals U.S. Job Losses Of 20.5 Million, Historic Unemployment Rate In April
The bleak numbers strengthen analysts’ expectations of a slow recovery from the recession caused by the pandemic, adding to a pile of dismal data on consumer spending, business investment, trade, productivity and the housing market. The report underscores the devastation unleashed by lockdowns imposed by states and local governments in mid-March to slow the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus. (Mutikani, 5/8)
The Wall Street Journal: April Unemployment Rate Rose To A Record 14.7%
The job losses and high unemployment mark a sharp pivot from just a few months ago, when the economy was pumping out hundreds of thousands of new jobs, and joblessness was hovering near 50-year lows. The jobs bust has been widespread. Friday’s jobs report will show the extent to which the economic pain has hit services and other lower-wage jobs, and white-collar jobs in business services, including lawyers, architects and consultants. (Chaney and Morath, 5/8)
CNN: Record 20.5 million American jobs lost in April. Unemployment rate soars to 14.7%
Those losses follow steep cutbacks in March as well, when employers slashed 870,000 jobs. Those two months amount to layoffs so severe, they moire than double the 8.7 million jobs lost during the financial crisis. For many Americans who lost their jobs and their homes in the 2008 financial crisis, this moment reopens old wounds. It took years to rebound from those setbacks. When the economy eventually did crawl back, US employers added 22.8 million jobs over 10 years — a victory for all those who had weathered the Great Recession. (Tappe, 5/8)
Bloomberg: U.S. Jobless Rate Triples to 14.7% in Sharpest Labor Downturn
April’s losses erase roughly all of the jobs that the economy had added in this past decade’s expansion and lay bare just how precarious employment is for vast swaths of Americans. With a steep recession now in progress, the destruction of jobs heaps election-year pressure on President Donald Trump to restart the economy and show results by November. (Dmitrieva, 5/8)
MarketWatch: Coronavirus Costs The U.S. 20.5 Million Jobs In April As Unemployment Soars To 14.7%
In seven weeks since the virus shut down much of the U.S. economy, more than 33 million people have applied for unemployment benefits. The numbers are still growing by several million a week. A smattering of people have been returning to work in dribs and drabs over the past few weeks as states slowly reopen their economies, but not enough to put an appreciable dent in record unemployment. (Bartash, 5/8)
The Washington Post: U.S. Unemployment Rate Hits ‘Scary’ 14.7 Percent, The Worst Since The Depression Era
The sudden economic contraction has forced millions of Americans to turn to food banks and seek government aid for the first time or stop paying rent and other bills. As they go without paychecks for weeks, some have also lost health insurance and even put their homes up for sale. “This is pretty scary,” said Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at Stifel. “I’m fearful many of these jobs are not going to come back and we are going to have an unemployment rate well into 2021 of near 10 percent.” (Long, 5/8)
The New York Times: The Jobs Report Friday Will Be A Portrait Of Devastation
Just how bad are the April employment figures going to be? We know they will be awful. After all, the number of people filing new claims for unemployment insurance was in the millions for the seventh straight week last week, the Labor Department announced Thursday. But it is the monthly jobs report — showing job creation or losses, and the unemployment rate — that investors and the news media generally scrutinize for evidence of how the economy is evolving. (Irwin, 5/7)
Reuters: Explainer: Why Friday's U.S. Jobless Figures Won't Capture The True State Of The Coronavirus Economy
The U.S. economy has never lost more than 2 million jobs in a single month. And although the unemployment rate reached 25% in 1933, it got there much more slowly. But even these grim estimates, from economists polled by Reuters in recent weeks, don’t capture the staggering impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the workforce in the world’s largest economy. The unemployment rate is part of a monthly report from the federal government’s Labor Department, showing how many people don’t have jobs as a percentage of the overall American workforce. (Saphir, 5/8)
Politico: When Will All The Jobs Return?
The U.S. economy is sitting in its deepest hole since the Great Depression, with more than 33 million Americans losing their jobs in just seven weeks and an unemployment rate likely to top 20 percent this year under the weight of the coronavirus pandemic. And it’s likely to take years — perhaps much of the next decade — to dig out. (White, 5/8)
The New York Times: An 8-Week Odyssey Through The State Bureaucracy To Collect Unemployment
Seven weeks after she filed for unemployment benefits, Nadine Josephs was running out of money. The birthdays of her two teenage children loomed, and she was spending her days pleading for forbearance on overdue bills. Holed up in her apartment in the East New York, Brooklyn, Ms. Josephs, 46, had grown increasingly frustrated since she filed her claim on March 16. And she was tired of hearing assurances from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to the thousands of desperate New Yorkers like her that the checks would be in the mail. (McGeehan, 5/8)
PBS NewsHour: Economic Damage From The Pandemic Spreads To All Corners Of The Country
More than 33 million Americans have lost their jobs since the COVID-19 pandemic began -- including 3.2 million in just the past week. Oceanside shops and restaurants that usually draw tourists at this time of year are deserted, forcing layoffs. But major national retailers are also affected by the economic collapse, with Neiman Marcus and J.Crew filing for bankruptcy. (Brangham, 5/7)
WBUR: Economist Gene Sperling Says US Needs To Improve 'Economic Dignity' For All Workers
The 33 million unemployment claims paint a picture of a U.S. economy devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. But those numbers don’t give us the most important measure, says economist Gene Sperling, former economic adviser to presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. (Hobson, 5/7)
