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If the unemployment rate continues to rise at this pace (about 7% every two weeks), it will match the peak during the Great Depression (25%) around the end of April.

That's 40 million people who will have no income and likely no health care in the middle of a pandemic.

Not sure how to process this information honestly.



>That's 40 million people who will have no income and likely no health care in the middle of a pandemic.

if the government were to help regular people that would be say $1T/40M = $25K - one can survive a month or two on that (and those money would have naturally trickled promptly up thus also supporting the top of the economy - corporations, banks, etc. - instead of being directly accumulated there like in the current trickle down approach). My understanding that is what they ultimately did in Great Depression - by way of public works and rudimentary safety net - though the things had to get really bad before they did it, and one can only wonder how much things have to get bad this time.


>$25K - one can survive a month or two on that

US median yearly household income is about $61k


You cannot simply extrapolate trends ad infinitum.

You have to look at the vulnerable industries, and assume percentage of those jobs will be lost, up to the limit of that industry.

...but certainly, the longer everyone stays home, the more industries will be sucked into the void.

Ultimately, we will have no choice but to advise people to go back to their lives, despite the risks.

The government does not have the ability to bail out every single industry in the economy.


You can't extrapolate trends ad infinitum, and I didn't.

I extrapolated them for four weeks.

All we need is four more weeks of what has happened for the last two (and most authorities are saying that the lockdowns will last at least this long), and we're at the peak of the Great Depression, unemployment-wise at least.

Moreover, by assuming constant linear growth, I was being optimistic about the slope of the curve. The second week of jobless claims was worse than the first.


108m Americans work in the service sector.


Well, think about it this way, everyone will be 200% unemployed by the end of the year.




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