US unemployment is up by 3,000% in just three weeks. Congress must act | Heidi Shierholz

Though it has not been officially declared, we are already in a deep recession that will get deeper before it gets better

This week the US labor department released data on initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims, showing that UI claims jumped from 211,000 in the week ending 7 March 2020 6.6 million in the week ending 28 March. This is more than a 3,000% increase in three weeks. In fact, every state in the country reported its highest initial claims ever either last week or the week before. Over the last two weeks alone, nearly 10 million workers have filed unemployment insurance claims. And given that health insurance is tied to work for so many, we estimate that 3.5 million workers likely also lost their health insurance in the last two weeks. The grief and suffering behind these numbers is incomprehensible. Though it has not been officially declared, we are certainly already in a deep recession that will get deeper before it gets better.

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Heidi Shierholz is director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute and served as chief economist at the US Department of Labor