Until now there have been few hard data points that reveal anything about the true economic impact of coronavirus. Economists have opined, journalists have guessed, and the stock market has reacted.
Then on Thursday the weekly unemployment claims data from the US was published, revealing that almost 3.3 million people had filed for unemployment benefit.
Truly "off the charts"
That number of claims is truly unprecedented. It's about 5 times the largest number of claims seen during the worst week of the global financial crisis, which peaked at 665,000 back in early 2009.
A number of states even reported their websites were crashing under the strain of people filing, which frighteningly could mean this number was a bit low, as people gave up on crashed sites.
What does this mean?
It's a confirmation of just how bad, and how quickly, things have changed for the global economy. It adds to the weight of evidence that governments needed to intervene with substantial stimulus packages, which many have now done.
