The initial unemployment claims number came out today, and it’s grim.

6.6 6.9 million new claims. That’s about 10 million new claims in the last 2 weeks.

The unemployment rate (U3) is almost certainly above 10%, and I would be remiss if I did not note that labor force participation, even adjusted for age, has still not returned to the levels that was before the 2008 recession.

Given that we haven’t seen the knock-on effects yet of all of this, things like delayed college entry because of school year cancellations, I have to believe that the unemployment rate will exceed 25% before any recovery starts. Fix it tonight in one mile exit point

Not good.