With 5.2 million more people seeking unemployment benefits in the past week, approximately 22 million Americans have sought jobless benefits in the past month due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report by the Associated Press.
That makes this four-week period the worst stretch of U.S. job losses on record. In all, nearly 12 million people are now receiving unemployment checks, roughly matching the peak reached in January 2010.
With the closing of all businesses deemed nonessential, some economists say the unemployment rate could reach as high as 20 percent in April. That would be the highest rate since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
