Graph of the Day: The staggering rise in U.S. jobless claims, 19 March 2020
By Quoctrung Bui and Justin Wolfers
19 March 2020
(The New York Times) – Numbers released on Thursday by the Labor Department — as well as a preliminary analysis of even more recent data — provide the first hard confirmation that the new coronavirus is bringing the United States economy to a shuddering halt. The government reported that the number of initial unemployment claims rose to 281,000 last week, a sharp rise from 211,000 the previous week. This rise in initial claims of 70,000 is larger than any week-to-week movement that occurred during (or since) the 2008 financial crisis.
But even these numbers understate the economy’s free fall, as they reflect the state of the economy last week. Based on preliminary news reports this week from 15 states, it’s already clear that initial claims will skyrocket next week, most likely to levels never seen before.
The numbers for the state of Washington, where the coronavirus pandemic took hold earlier and has had a severe impact, are particularly notable. There, jobless claims more than doubled last week, and are now at levels recorded during the depths of the last recession.
Washington is an especially relevant case study because it imposed containment measures — including the closing of schools and restaurants and a ban on large gatherings — a week or so ahead of many other states. It seems likely that other states’ labor markets will also follow Washington’s path.
Although Washington has not revealed the most recent official figures, state officials said that claims increased 150 percent last week and that the state was seeing an “even more dramatic increase this week.” They also mentioned that call volume surged more than eightfold on Tuesday.
As the accompanying charts show, jobless claims rose sharply in the vast majority of states. These figures come from state unemployment insurance offices tallying up the number of people newly applying for unemployment benefits. [more]
