1.5 Million New People File for Unemployment Amid Signs the Economy Is Bouncing Back | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's note: This informational nugget was sent to me by Ben Shapiro, who represents the Daily Wire, and since this is one of the most topical news events, it should be published on BCN.

The author of this post is Emily Zanotti.

    Around 1.5 million people filed first-time unemployment claims last week amid signs that the economy is recovering from a nearly two-month coronavirus-related lockdown.

    CNN reports that although 1,542,000 individuals filed initial unemployment claims, that's the lowest the number has been since the number peaked in the last week of March when more than 6.2 million people filed for assistance. The number has been slowly declining since then, by around 50,000 to 80,000 per week.

    In total, though, around 44 million people were left unemployed - at least temporarily - thanks to COVID-19, shrinking the U.S. economy by around 6% and driving the unemployment rate to a staggering 20% - the most since World War II and far surpassing numbers in the Great Recession in 2008.

    The number of "gig workers" and independent contractors filing for assistance under a temporary expansion of state unemployment programs also declined last week, CNN says. "Nearly 706,000 people in 42 states filed initial claims for the pandemic unemployment assistance program last week, slightly down from the prior week."

    Overall, that number is down 1.2 million from a high of nearly 10 million.

    The economic recovery is proceeding faster than initially expected, according to financial experts, who had, initially, assumed the U.S. would be mired in the COVID-19 recession for months, if not years. But the elements of a swift upturn seem to have been in place before coronavirus hit.

    Fox News' Andy Pudzer notes that President Donald Trump predicted the recovery back in April.

    "We're going to rebuild [the economy] again in honor of all those who perished today," the president said at the time, according to Pudzer. "And I think the stimulus, coupled with this pent-up demand and everybody wanting to get out and go back to work ... I think we're going to have ... a tremendous surge."

    "The latest jobs report shows that the U.S. economy added more than 2.5 million jobs in May, confounding analysts who had predicted a loss of between 7.5 and 8.5 million jobs. This means the U.S. economy outperformed expectations by over 10 million jobs in just one month," the Pepperdine professor told the network. "The unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell to 13.3 percent - a full 1.4 percentage point drop, contrary to fears that it could surge to as high as 20 percent."

    The stock market is also showing promise, per CNBC.

    "Stocks rose sharply on Wednesday on the back of better-than-expected economic data, which bolstered optimism over the recovery from coronavirus-led shutdowns," the network reported. "The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 527.24 points, or 2.1%, to close at 26,269.89. The S&P 500 gained 1.4% to end the day at 3,122.87 while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.8% to 9,682.91. Wednesday's gains led the Dow to a three-day winning streak while the S&P 500 notched its first four-day winning streak since early February."

    That likely means a positive long-term outlook for the economy as workers return to their jobs and individual states return to normal operations.