America's economic crisis deepened today as new figures revealed 26 million people have now claimed unemployment benefits since the country started going into lockdown.
Around 4.2 million were estimated to have filed their initial claim for financial support in the past week, bringing the total since mid-March to 26.2million — more than one in six workers. The rise has effectively wiped out all the jobs created in America’s record decade-long employment boom.
The figures will increase pressure on states to relax restrictions brought in to limit the spread of Covid-19, which has now claimed more than 47,000 lives across the US.
“The US economy is haemorrhaging jobs at a pace and scale never before recorded,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West in San Francisco. “It compares to a natural disaster on a national scale.”
President Donald Trump has been anxious to restart the paralysed economy and yesterday applauded steps taken by some Republican-led states to begin reopening their economies, despite warnings from health experts of a potential new surge in infections.
“States are safely coming back. Our Country is starting to OPEN FOR BUSINESS again,” he wrote on Twitter.
Mr Trump earlier signed an executive order halting the issuing of immigration green cards for 60 days “in order to protect our great American workers”.
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However, in a sign of America’s disjointed approach to ending the lockdown, Mr Trump took issue with a decision by Georgia’s Republican governor to reopen salons, barber shops, gyms, tattoo parlours and other non-essential businesses that had been shut to contain the virus, saying, “It’s just too soon. Maybe wait a little bit longer”
