BRACE YOURSELF. I have been a labor economist for a very long time and have never seen anything like this. Here are last week’s initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims. (1/n) 
Initial UI claims jumped from 211,000 three weeks ago to 282,000 two weeks ago to 3.3 *million* last week. That is nearly a 1500% increase in two weeks. (2/n)
Is the shock-factor of last week’s UI numbers being driven by seasonal adjustments? Nope. Here is the not-seasonally adjusted series. (3/n)
Even more disturbing? Last week’s spike in UI claims is just the tip of the iceberg. We estimate that by summer, 14 million workers will lost their jobs due to the #coronavirus shock. (4/n) epi.org/blog/the-coron…
Congress is currently debating a $2 trillion #stimulusbill to help this country through this unprecedented crisis. It will be an important step in our response, but we will need more and better. (5/n) epi.org/blog/despite-s…
I mean, LOOK AT THIS. (6/n)
Initial UI claims, this time with recession-shading. Stunning how this simply dwarfs the Great Recession. (7/n)
Not-seasonally-adjusted initial UI claims, now with recession shading so you can compare what we are going through right now to earlier recessions. Boggles the mind. (8/n)
If you read one thing today, read this editorial, it's fantastic. (Spoiler: we did not have to have mass unemployment in this pandemic, it is a monumental policy failure.) (9/n) nytimes.com/2020/03/26/opi…
