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Amid the COVID-19 Crisis, a Tale of Two Cities


Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in both a major public health crisis and a major economic crisis. The economic impact is coming primarily via social distancing (or stay-in-place) restrictions that have resulted in the temporary closing of nonessential businesses in many parts of the country. As a result, millions of workers have been laid off or furloughed. Unemployment claims for the week ending March 21 totaled more than 3 million—the highest number of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the series at that time. That record was broken quickly. For the week ending March 28, the number of seasonally adjusted initial claims increased to an adjusted 6.9 million. For the week ending April 4 there were an additional 6.6 million new unemployment insurance claims.

Keywords: COVID-19; Employment; Unemployment;

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Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Source: Macroblog

Publication Date: 2020-04-09