Jobs Numbers
Fed survey shows almost 40 percent of American households making less than $40k lost a job in March
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday said "the reversal of economic fortune" brought on by the coronavirus pandemic over the last two months in the United States "has caused a level of pain that is hard to capture in words."
Statistics, though, can help paint a clearer picture of the crisis. In the same address, Powell said the Fed is releasing a survey Thursday which found that among people who were working in February, nearly 40 percent of those in households making less than $40,000 per year lost a job in March.
All told, Powell said, "the scope and speed of this downturn are without modern precedent, significantly worse than any recession since World War II." He also warned that the pandemic could leave lasting economic damage. Read the full address here.