"As Pandemic Layoffs Top 17 Million, Mutual Aid Networks Arise"

“The latest weekly unemployment figures from the US Department of Labor came in today, and the bottom line, note Heather Long and Andrew Van Dam, is that “more than 17 million new jobless claims have been filed in the past four weeks.”

Astonishingly, the unemployment rate, which was 3.5 percent as recently as February, is now higher than it has been since the Great Depression.

“It looks like the unemployment rate is headed to 15 percent,” Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Bank, wrote in a note to clients, report Long and Van Dam. “This isn’t a recession, it’s the Great Depression II,” Rupkey adds.”