The US unemployment numbers have been released today and have smashed records. 3.3 million Americans have filed claims for unemployment due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus.
1982 was the last time the United States saw records broken with 695,000 claims being made in October. The disparity between the two records shows the scale of the situation that is engulfing Donald Trump’s presidency.
weekly jobless claims, a 30σ event pic.twitter.com/LEO7s5TXsH
— 📈 Len Kiefer 📊 (@lenkiefer) March 26, 2020
Stocks rise on news
The US stock market opened 2% higher despite the bad news, suggesting that the announcement had already been priced in. They have also been boosted by the $6 trillion deal that managed to get through Congress. This is on top of the huge quantitative easing effort by central banks throughout the world.
The rise in unemployment is likely to heighten the pressure on Trump to relax the social distancing laws in place. Trump has stated that he is hoping for this to be complete by Easter Sunday. Sources have already stated that he fears the stock market losses are hurting his chance of re-election,
Unfortunately for Trump though the Coronavirus shows little sign of slowing down its spread through America. Yesterday over 14,000 cases were reported making it the largest daily increase of any country since the crisis began.
More pain ahead
Despite the stock markets initial positive reaction to the unemployment numbers and Trump’s hope of resolving the crisis by Easter Sunday, it can be expected that there is more pain ahead for both.
Due to the amount of claims filed the government is still working through the backlog suggesting that the amount of unemployed in America is a lot higher. Added to this are those who may have lost their jobs but have not filed any claims.
The time is approaching where Trump will have to either listen to his medical advisors and extend the restrictions on American citizens or cave into stock market pressures and allow people to return to work.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. We do not give advice on financial products.