Stunning, Unprecedented Jobless Numbers Only Offer Slice Of Economic Devastation Coronavirus Is Wreaking

The New York Times: A Widening Toll On Jobs: ‘This Thing Is Going To Come For Us All’
A staggering 6.6 million people applied for unemployment benefits last week as the coronavirus outbreak ravaged nearly every corner of the American economy, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The speed and scale of the job losses are without precedent. In just two weeks, the pandemic has left nearly 10 million Americans out of work, more than in the worst months of the last recession. Until last month, the worst week for unemployment filings was 695,000 in 1982. “What usually takes months or quarters to happen in a recession is happening in a matter of weeks,” said Michelle Meyer, chief U.S. economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. (Casselman and Cohen, 4/2)

The New York Times: The Unemployment Rate Is Probably Around 13 Percent
The jobless rate today is almost certainly higher than at any point since the Great Depression. We think it’s around 13 percent and rising at a speed unmatched in American history. The labor market is changing so fast that our official statistics — intended to measure changes over months and years rather than days or weeks — can’t really keep up. But a few simple calculations can help piece together a reasonable approximation. (Wolfers, 4/3)

NBC News: U.S. Economy Lost A Total Of 701,000 Jobs In March
The U.S. economy lost a total of 701,000 jobs in March, bringing a record 10-year streak of employment gains to a halt as the coronavirus pandemic continues to hammer the workforce and shatter economic growth. The closely watched monthly jobs data, released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, also shows the unemployment rate soared to 4.4 percentfrom 3.5 percent, after months at a half-century low. March’s data represents the tip of the iceberg, however, since the survey was conducted in the first half of the month, prior to the pandemic’s grip on the economy. (Bayly, 4/3)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Employers Cut 701,000 Jobs In March
The near shutdown of swaths of the U.S. economy due to the new coronavirus pandemic—from corner restaurants to manufacturing plants to international tourism—is inflicting damage on the labor market that economists say dwarfs the most significant economic downturns of the post-World War II era. And it is playing out in a matter of weeks, rather than years. (Morath, 4/3)

Stateline: Coronavirus And The States: Joblessness Slams The States That Responded Early; Testing Backlog Deprives States Of Data
The unemployment crisis that’s left 10 million people newly jobless in the past two weeks is hitting the industrial Midwest and tourist meccas hardest, with more than 1 in 10 workers in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Nevada filing claims in the most recent late March results. That was more than twice the rate of claims in New York and California, the original epicenters of the novel coronavirus, where there are more white-collar and tech jobs that can be done from home during the shutdown. (Henderson, 4/2)

Politico: ’No Words For This’: 10 Million Workers File Jobless Claims In Just Two Weeks
Unemployment claims soared to a record-smashing 6.6 million last week, the Labor Department reported, more than double the previous week, signaling more economic pain from the coronavirus pandemic. The rush to claim unemployment benefits occurred as the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus rose above 200,000 and government measures to contain the epidemic shut down increasing swaths of the U.S. economy, with residents in 37 states now ordered to stay at home. (Rainey and McCaskill, 4/2)

The Washington Post: Past Two Weeks Wiped Out Economy’s Job Gains Since 2016 Election
The coronavirus recession is shaping up to be the biggest blow to the U.S. economy since the Great Recession, and fears are rising that it could take years to reverse the damage, especially for millions of Americans who are losing their jobs and businesses. The past two weeks have wiped out all the economy’s job gains since President Trump’s November 2016 election, a sign of how rapid, deep and painful the economic shutdown has been on American families struggling to pay rent, prescriptions, food and health insurance in the middle of a pandemic. (Long and Bhattarai, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Companies Try To Preserve Jobs By Cutting Pay Amid Coronavirus Crisis
As the coronavirus outbreak spreads, many workers’ paychecks are shrinking. A growing number of companies are trying to spread the financial pain as they contend with government-ordered lockdowns, dwindling production orders and closed stores, restaurants and plants. They reason that keeping on some workers at reduced pay can ease fixed costs and stave off greater job losses—while keeping talent at the ready if the economy and hiring market recover sooner than later. For some, it is a last resort to keep a skeleton crew employed while others are furloughed or laid off. (Feintzeig and Thomas, 4/3)

USA Today: Coronavirus Pandemic Jobs: US Health Care Workers Furloughed, Laid Off
Dotty Orr took time off from her job as a receptionist for a primary care physician in Akron, Ohio, to get her knee replaced March 4. Thursday, she found out she’s not going back. Orr, 64, worked for Dr. Pennie Marchetti for eight years. Marchetti laid off Orr and a part-time nurse as patient visits dropped nearly 80% during the novel coronavirus pandemic. (Norvell and O’Donnell, 4/2)

The Hill: Trump Administration Issues Guidance Scaling Back Paid Leave Requirement For Small Business Employees 
President Trump’s administration has pulled back requirements for small businesses to administer paid leave to their employees in a guidance published Wednesday. The Labor Department’s guidance for the coronavirus stimulus bill said companies with fewer than 50 workers have the option to decline 12 weeks of paid leave that the bill mandated for those whose children are home from school or child care. (Coleman, 4/2)

The Associated Press: You’ve Just Lost Your Job? Here’s What You Need To Know
Nearly 10 million Americans have lost their jobs and applied for unemployment benefits in the past two weeks — a stunning record high that reflects the near-complete shutdown of the U.S. economy. Job losses related to the coronavirus are sure to rise further in coming weeks, with economists saying the U.S. unemployment rate could reach as high as 15%, well above the 10% peak during the Great Recession. As recently as February, the unemployment rate was just 3.5%, a 50-year low. (Rugaber and Sell, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Mortgage Relief From Coronavirus Crisis Is Off To Rocky Start
Struggling homeowners are flooding their mortgage companies with requests for help as the coronavirus pandemic wrecks the economy. Many are having a hard time getting it. Homeowners say they are waiting hours on the phone just to reach a real person. When they do, some are told that getting an answer could take weeks. That is a troublesome timeline for the many borrowers whose mortgage payments are due in the first half of April. (McCaffrey and Ackerman, 4/3)

Politico: Kushner Company Stands To Benefit From Freeze On Federal Mortgage Payments
Jared Kushner’s family business could be a prime beneficiary of a provision in the federal recovery bill that allows owners of apartment buildings to freeze federal mortgage payments on low- and moderate-income properties. Kushner Companies, the real estate firm started in 1985 by Kushner’s father, Charles, controls thousands of low- and moderate-housing units across the country, some of which are funded through an $800 million federally backed loan the firm received in 2019. (Severns, 4/3)

Los Angeles Times: She Clawed From Poverty, But Coronavirus Took Her Way Of Life
Raquel Lezama had reason to be proud. At 17, after crossing the Mexican border, she toiled in a Los Angeles garment factory, earning 5 cents for each blouse she ironed — $50 a day if she could manage 1,000 pieces. A few years later, after surviving a brutal beating by her day-laborer husband, she gained legal residency through a green card reserved for victims of domestic violence. (Roosevelt, 4/2)

And a look at President Donald Trump’s stake in the economic turmoil —

ProPublica: Trump Congratulates Businesses For Helping Fight Coronavirus. But His Own Company Has Been Absent.
As America’s coronavirus crisis has mushroomed, President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted the efforts of businesses to meet a desperate nation’s needs. “It’s been really amazing to see these big, strong, powerful — in some cases, very small companies, family-owned companies — step up and make a lot of great product for what we’re going through and what we will continue to be going through for a while,” Trump declared on March 24. His press conferences have sometimes seemed like a parade of CEOs, from the leaders of retail and pharmaceutical giants like Walmart and Roche to chiefs of relative mites like MyPillow. (Elkind, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Costing Trump Properties Over $1 Million Daily In Lost Revenue
The coronavirus outbreak is costing Trump Organization properties more than a million dollars in lost revenue daily and may have hurt the firm’s chances of earning a record price on the sale of its Washington hotel, according to an analysis of industry data and people familiar with the deal talks. The majority of revenues for President Trump’s family business comes from travel and leisure, which have been hit hard by the forced closures and economic downturn caused by the pandemic. (Spegele, Karmin and Strasburg, 4/2)