- The novel coronavirus outbreak, which has led to over 500,000 confirmed cases and over 22,000 deaths in the United States so far, has wreaked havoc on the country's economy.
- Between March 15 and April 4, over 16 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits.
- While the economic dislocation is being felt across the country, some states, including California and Pennsylvania, have been hit harder than others so far.
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The novel coronavirus outbreak has led to a shutdown of large swaths of the US economy, as cities and states across the country adopt stay-at-home orders and shutter social gatherings and businesses.
The economic impact of the outbreak is already being felt in labor markets, as the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits has shattered historical records and strained the resources of state offices.
Those record-high numbers coincided with states and cities across the US adopting various social-distancing measures, closing nonessential businesses and directing Americans to stay at home in most circumstances. While these measures are likely needed to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the sudden pause in much of the country's economic activity has led to massive furloughs and layoffs.
Every Thursday, the Labor Department releases the number of Americans who have newly filed for unemployment benefits in the previous week. Over the last three weeks, those numbers have been extremely dire - a cumulative total of roughly 16.8 million Americans filed for benefits over that period.
The weekly release includes the state-by-state breakdown of those initial unemployment claims. This map shows the total cumulative number of claims for each state over the last three releases, covering the period from March 15 through April 4.
We also included the total number as a percent share of the state's February 2020 workforce, the most recent figures available, to give a sense of how much the coronavirus has affected large and small states alike.
The numbers are stark. Over 2 million Californians and over 1 million Pennsylvanians have filed for unemployment since the middle of March. In 20 states, over 10% of the February workforce filed for unemployment over those three weeks:
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