The U.S. unemployment rate hit 14.7% in April, the Labor Department reported Friday, with a staggering 20.5 million job losses that month underscoring the economic disaster wreaked by the coronavirus pandemic.
The report delivered the worst jobless numbers on record, surpassing the lows of the Great Recession of the late 2000s and putting the current economic crisis on par with the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The numbers provide a glimpse into the depth of the crisis caused by the government-ordered shutdown of the economy, and likely will heighten calls for Congress to pass another massive spending bill to rescue families, businesses and state government budgets.
The first four rescue packages have spent a total of nearly $3 trillion.
The job market collapsed at a breathtaking pace as state governments’ orders to shutter businesses and stay at home took a toll with massive layoffs.
The unemployment rate was at a five-decade low of 3.5% in February and ticked up to 4.4% in March before skyrocketing in April.
The economic pain across the country likely exceeds the numbers in the government’s report.
The Labor Department noted that many people who lost jobs in April but didn’t look for another one were not counted in the unemployment rate. Those losses were reflected in the decline in working-age Americans who have jobs, which dropped to a record-low 51.3%.
