BREAKING: 1.5 million people applied for unemployment aid last week. As claims remain at historically elevated levels, economists doubt the U.S. is on the road to rapid recovery.
New unemployment claims continued to roll in last week at historically elevated levels, with 1.5 million new applications filed, the Labor Department reported.
On top of that, more than 760,000 people applied for benefits under the new temporary Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program created for those ineligible for traditional unemployment benefits. While economists caution that there is likely overlap, added together, the number of new claims filed last week could be higher than 2.1 million.The number of American workers still seeking unemployment more than three months into the pandemic has sparked doubt among many economists that the U.S.
Recent spikes in coronavirus cases in areas that restarted their economies have also caused a handful of states and localitiesTrump has still seized on recent positive economic indicators. U.S. retail sales jumped by 17.7 percent in May, the Commerce Department reported this week. And the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped in May to 13.3 percent, down from 14.7 percent in April, a rate not seen since the Great Depression-era of the 1930s.
But Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia brushed aside comparisons to the Depression in a speech to the Heritage Foundation's National Coronavirus Recovery Commission this week. "We came into our current economic difficulty by a completely different path than prior downturns: It was self-imposed, and purposely short-term," Scalia said. "It did not result from an economic weakness — the economy had been very strong. The comparisons to the Great Depression have always been misplaced — our circumstance is different."to the multitrillion-dollar relief programs that Congress created in March to bolster small businesses and American bank accounts.
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