Job losses approach Depression territory as election looms
By Sylvan Lane - 05/09/20 06:00 AM EDT
The economic damage of the coronavirus was laid bare Friday when the Labor Department reported the worst job losses since the Great Depression, jolting the race for the White House less than six months before Election Day.
The pandemic and the desperate scramble to contain it have wiped out at least 21.4 million U.S. jobs in just two months, including a record-breaking loss of 20.5 million jobs in April alone.
The unemployment rate jumped from a 50-year low of 3.5 percent in February to 14.7 percent in April, the highest since record-keeping began in 1948.
“It's the biggest and fastest economic change that our country's ever experienced,†said Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist at the University of Minnesota and member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2016 to 2017.
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https://thehill.com/policy/finance/economy/496905-job-losses-approach-depression-territory-as-election-looms
