When coronavirus cases began rising across the country this fall, economists sounded a warning: Without government aid, layoffs were sure to follow. More than 947,000 workers filed new claims for state unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. Nearly 428,000 applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federal program that covers freelancers, self-employed workers and others who don’t qualify for regular state benefits. That figure, too, was a sharp increase from the previous week. Unemployment filings during the pandemic have been far above levels recorded in previous recessions.

Source: New York Times December 10, 2020 20:50 UTC