4.4 Million People Filed For Unemployment This Past Week, 26 Million In The Last 5 Weeks

The financial impact of COVID-19 has now reached a historic level when it comes to unemployment. Just released numbers have 4.4 million people filing for unemployment insurance this past week. That brings a grand total for the last five weeks to 26.4 million according to the labor department. 16 million people are receiving unemployment right now. Worse than “The Great Recession” (December 2007 to June 2009) and only “The Great Depression” (1929 to 1939) has seen an unemployment rate this high. Numbers wise that means the coronavirus has taken away in five weeks, what it took 11 years to gain in the job market.

And how is this affecting black people? Welp, a survey from Data for Progress found that 45% of black workers have lost hours or their jobs completely, compared to 31% for white workers. All eyes now look to the April Jobs Report, coming the 1st week of May, to see how bad thing were for the last 30 days.