The U.S. economy is struggling right now.

On Thursday, we learned that initial filings for unemployment insurance totaled a record 6.648 million for the week ending March 28, more than doubling the prior week’s reported total of 3.238 million that had also marked a record high. Distressingly, last week’s data was also revised higher on Thursday to 3.307 million.

And while the labor market fallout from the coronavirus-related economic hard-stop we’re experiencing has been the most abrupt and severe so far, economists at Bank of America Global Research believe the broader economic downturn we’re entering will result in the worst recession in modern U.S. history.

Read more: What is a recession? Here are the basics

“The recession appears to be deeper and more prolonged than we were led to believe just 14 days ago when we last updated our forecasts, not just in the U.S. but globally as well,” said BofA economists led by Michelle Meyer.

“We now believe that there will be three consecutive quarters of GDP contraction with the US economy shrinking 7% in 1Q, 30% in 2Q and 1% in 3Q. We expect this to be followed by a pop in growth in 4Q. We forecast the cumulative decline in GDP to be 10.4% and this will be the deepest recession on record, nearly five times more severe than the post-war average.” (Emphasis added.)

In 2008, the economy experienced a cumulative recessionary decline in GDP of 4%, the most since World War II. BofA is expecting the 2020 recession will be more than twice as severe in terms of the total GDP decline.

View photos Economists at Bank of America expect that the GDP declines seen in the current recession will be the worst on record, more than doubling the drop seen during the financial crisis. (Source: Bank of America Global Research) More

The labor market impacts are also expected to be eye-popping as the recession crests in the summer.

Bank of America expects that up to 20 million people will lose their jobs through the third quarter with the unemployment rate potentially peaking north of 15%.

“The shock is unlike anything we have experienced before with part of the economy effectively put into an induced coma,” BofA adds.

“The pain is sudden and acute. But we think there is a recovery on the other side. The first step is to solve the public health crisis and stop the spread of COVID-19. The next step is to slowly open the economy with businesses returning and people going back to work.”

Bank of America expects that GDP will pop 30% in the fourth quarter. But the firm still believes “this will be a slow recovery overall as many workers will be displaced and businesses adapt to a period of lost revenue.”

The consumer economy stumbles

Over the last few years, when questions about the Federal Reserve’s actions and the health of the global economy came into question, investors became accustomed to citing the strength and health of the U.S. consumer as the backbone of the bull market and economic expansion.

And indeed, just under 70% of GDP growth comes from consumer spending. Since the fourth quarter of 2013, no single quarter has seen U.S. consumer spending rise less than 3%.

But this trend looks set to come to an end.

Using its proprietary data that tracks spending from Bank of America debit and credit cardholders, Meyer and her team note that by the end of March about 20% of consumer spending categories had declined more than 40%.

View photos The number of American workers filing for unemployment claims is exploding across the country. More

Story continues