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.
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.
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.