Roughly 2.1 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week despite an increase in businesses reopening nationwide, pushing the total to 41 million since mid-March when the coronavirus pandemic, the Labor Department said Thursday.
The U.S. unemployment rate stood at 14.7 percent in April, the highest since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and many economists expect the May jobless numbers to hover near 20 percent, The Associated Press reported.
The Labor Department statistics show the continuing damage to businesses and lives as a result of the pandemic that has killed at least 100,000 Americans, more than the Vietnam and Korean wars combined and 33 times the toll of 9/11.
