U.S. unemployment rate soars to 14.7 percent, the worst since the Depression era

20.5 million people lost their jobs in April, the Labor Department said Friday. Many analysts believe it could take years to recover.

Sean McGuire, who was laid off as a restaurant dishwasher, in March at a short-term Airbnb in Portland, Ore. (Leah Nash/For The Washington Post)

By 

Heather Long and 

Andrew Van Dam  May 8, 2020 at 2:05 p.m. PDT

The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 14.7 percent in April, the highest level since the Great Depression, as many businesses shut down or severely curtailed operations to try to limit the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

The Labor Department said 20.5 million people abruptly lost their jobs, wiping out a decade of employment gains in a single month. The speed and magnitude of the loss defies comparison. It is roughly double what the nation experienced during the entire financial crisis from 2007 to 2009.

The coronavirus economy is exposing how easy it is to fall from the middle class into poverty

As the virus’s rapid spread accelerated in March, President Trump and a number of state and local leaders put forth restrictions that led businesses to suddenly shut down and shed millions of workers. Many businesses and households also canceled all travel plans. Analysts warn it could take years to return to the 3.5 percent unemployment rate the nation recorded in February, in part because it is unclear what the post-pandemic economy will look like, even if scientists make progress on a vaccine.

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Trump, though, claimed in a Fox News interview Friday that there would be a quick rebound.

“Those jobs will all be back, and they’ll be back very soon,†Trump said.

Former vice president Joe Biden, Trump’s expected opponent in November’s presidential election, said in remarks broadcast by NowThis News that the jobs report illustrated “an economic disaster†that was “made worse†in part by a slow and uneven White House response to the crisis earlier this year.