Unemployment claims are expected to dwarf the weekly record. [View all]

[elleng]

'The Labor Department’s weekly estimate of new claims for unemployment insurance, which will be released at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, typically draws little attention. Not this week: The report will provide some of the first hard data on the scale of the economic damage caused by the pandemic.

Citigroup economists estimate that the report could show that four million people applied for benefits last week. Other forecasters put the number a bit lower. But there is wide agreement that the total will dwarf the previous record of 695,000 new claims, from October 1982.

“In the whole history of initial claims, there’s never been anything remotely close to that,” said Ben Herzon, executive director of IHS Markit, a business data and analytics firm.'

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/business/stock-market-corona.html?

Eager to see how tr reacts!