People who lost their jobs wait in line to file for unemployment following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at an Arkansas Workforce Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas, U.S. April 6, 2020. Nick Oxford | File Photo | REUTERS

As the economic shutdown associated with coronavirus prevention measures nears the completion of its first full calendar month, a clearer picture is emerging of just how hard the hit has been to U.S. workers. An economy that had been near full employment just two months ago is now in its most dire straits since the Great Depression. New filings for weekly jobless claims, reported Thursday, added to the gloom with another 4.4 million applying for unemployment insurance. That brought the five-week total to more than 26 million. While bad enough on its own, it helped to complete a picture that likely will show the U.S. with its highest unemployment rate in about 87 years.

How high that number will get is still unclear when the Labor Department reports the April nonfarm payrolls data in two weeks. However, the current numbers look bad. The amount of people getting benefits compared with the total size of the labor force, a measure the government calls the "insured unemployment rate," is at 11%, the Labor Department said. Rolling in the rest of the jobless pushes the headline unemployment rate that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports to a "barely believable" 23%, said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics.

Over the worst

Most economists, though, think the actual reading likely will be closer to 10% to 15% due to the vagaries of how the BLS computes the rate. Ashworth himself sees the level at the high end of that range, though he said it may not be quite as bad as it looks on the surface. "A surge in the unemployment rate to more than 15% would invite comparisons with the Great Depression, but we think those are misplaced because many of the unemployed will return to paid employment when the lockdowns are lifted," Ashworth said in a note. "Nearly all of the increase in unemployment in March was due to temporary layoffs rather than permanent job losses." Ashworth expects the unemployment rate to come down quickly once the economy restarts — perhaps falling to 10% by summer and below 7% by the end of the year.