Initial unemployment claims more than double last week's total, and last week was then the largest in history.

Initial Claims vs Continued Claims

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Notes

• This week's initial claims (6.648 million) exceeds the highest ever continued unemployment claims (6.635 million).
• The two week total of initial claims is 9.955 million
• Prior to the last two weeks, the previous high in initial claims was 695,000, set in 1982.

There will be another surge next week as state servers are still flooded with calls.

Household Survey February 2020

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Based on the hard numbers, the number of unemployed will go up by at least 10 million. But states are still scrambling to handle the surge in claims. Another 5 million or more are likely in the pipeline.

If we assume a total of 15 million, the unemployment rate would be (15 million + 5.787 million) / 164.546 million = 12.63%.

We will not necessarily hit that number in tomorrow's jobs report. But whatever tomorrow's number is, it will be worse in the May 1 report for the month of April.