Americans are increasingly underemployed as coronavirus spreads, a Thursday report from Pew Research Center shows.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shut down businesses and left millions of people unemployed, at least until their workplaces reopen. A fifth of Americans say they or someone in their household has lost their job due to the new coronavirus spread, while more than a quarter say someone in their household has had to take a pay cut, Pew reports in its survey. In all, that's a full third of Americans who say they or someone in their household has had their job affected by the outbreak.
That devastating statistic was echoed in Thursday's Labor Department report that showed unemployment claims had surged from 282,000 to a record high of 3.3 million. Many of those job losses are supposed to be temporary, but some will undoubtedly end up permanent. And those numbers don't even include contract and gig workers or those who've been out of work for months, all of whom are ineligible for unemployment benefits.
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Pew surveyed 11,537 U.S. adults on its American Trends Panel throughout March 2020. The online survey had a margin of error of 1.5 percent.
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