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Democracy Dies in Darkness

U.S. unemployment rate soars to 14.7 percent, the worst since the Depression era

20.5 million people lost their jobs in April, the Labor Department said Friday. Many analysts believe it could take years to recover.

By
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May 8, 2020 at 5:05 p.m. EDT
Sean McGuire, who was laid off as a restaurant dishwasher, in March at a short-term Airbnb in Portland, Ore. (Leah Nash/For The Washington Post)

The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 14.7 percent in April, the highest level since the Great Depression, as many businesses shut down or severely curtailed operations to try to limit the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

The Labor Department said 20.5 million people abruptly lost their jobs, wiping out a decade of employment gains in a single month. The speed and magnitude of the loss defies comparison. It is roughly double what the nation experienced during the entire financial crisis from 2007 to 2009.