The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits last week shot to a record high for a second week in a row - topping 6 million - as more jurisdictions enforced stay-at-home measures to curb the coronavirus pandemic, which economists say has pushed the economy into recession.
Initial claims for unemployment benefits rose to 6.65 million in the latest week from an unrevised 3.3 million the previous week, the U.S.
Labor Department said on Thursday. The figures far exceeded the median estimate of 3.50 million in a Reuters survey of economists.
Estimates in the survey were as high as 5.25 million. The government's weekly report, the most timely data on the economy's health, offered the clearest evidence yet that the longest