Nearly half a million in Indiana, Michigan file for unemployment last week

SOUTH BEND, Ind. ---The coronavirus pandemic devastating the American economy with new numbers showing millions of Americans filing for unemployment over the last two weeks.  

In Indiana, the number of people who filed for unemployment last week nearly reached 150,000 people. In Michigan that number more than doubles, with over 300,000 people making unemployment claims.  

According to the Department of Labor, a record-shattering 6.65 million people filed for unemployment in the United States last week.

The week before, 3.28 million Americans filed for unemployment.

To put things into perspective, more people have filed for unemployment in the last two weeks than have the last ten months.

Bill Adams, a senior economist with the PNC Financial Group, says these kinds of numbers are unprecedented.

“This was a terrible number for the US economy. This was the sort of number where I and many economists felt a pit in our stomach as we saw it,” Adams said. “Combining this week’s job loss with last week job loss, we’ve seen about 10 million Americans file initial claims for unemployment insurance.”

Rewind to just two weeks ago and not even 300,000 people in the US filed for unemployment the week of March 14.

Adams says silver lining here is that the government has been responsive in passing legislation to help Americans and the economy.

More money has been put aside for unemployment benefits and stimulus checks which he thinks will help the economy bounce back once faster once closures and stay at home orders are lifted.

“It’s going to be hard in the near term for the economy. We’re hoping that once the outbreak gets under control, once the pandemic gets under control, that hopefully after that the economy can pretty much return to where it was before this.”