47 million jobs could be lost during the coronavirus pandemic, the St. Louis branch of the Federal Reserve announced Monday. That would skyrocket unemployment to a never-before heard of 32.1%. The Great Depression saw a peak of 24.9% unemployment.
67 million Americans are currently “at a high risk of layoffs,” the analysis shows, according to CNBC.
Millions of Americans have already lost their jobs. There were a staggering 3.3 million new unemployment filings reported last week. Estimates predict an additional 2.65 million more filings will be reported this week.
The calculations “don’t account for workers who may drop out of the labor force, thus bringing down the headline unemployment rate, and they do not estimate the impact of recently passed government stimulus, which will extend unemployment benefits and subsidize companies for not cutting staff and extending unemployment benefits.”
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, considered one of the most influential economists in the world, last week tried to put a positive spin on his projection of a 30% unemployment rate. He predicted the jobless number “will be unparalleled,” but urged Americans, “don’t get discouraged.”
“This is a special quarter, and once the virus goes away and if we play our cards right and keep everything intact, then everyone will go back to work and everything will be fine,” Bullard claimed, predicting a “boom quarter” after the virus is controlled. Many experts predict some businesses will not be able to recover or re-open.
Image by Burt Lum via Flickr and a CC license