More than HALF of Los Angeles workers are now unemployed just one month into coronavirus lockdowns
MORE than half of Los Angeles residents are unemployed — making up an estimated 1.3 of the 22 million people who have filed for unemployment amid the coronavirus crisis.
Over one million people are unemployed in Los Angeles County, with only 45 per cent of local residents still employed, a study from the University of Southern California found.
In mid-March, before the pandemic spurred stay-at-home orders across the country, 61 per cent of those people had jobs, according to the LAist.
The study found that 15 per cent of white people reported losing their jobs, while 18 per cent of Latinos and 21 per cent of black people also reported losses.
"In L.A., there was a certain level of insecurity to begin with, and it has increased a little bit more than it has in the national average," USC's Jill Darling, survey director for the Understanding America Study, told the news outlet.
The Labor Department announced on Thursday that another 5.2 million Americans filed jobless claims, bringing the total number of claims to over 22 million just over the past four weeks.
Three weeks ago, around 3.3 million people filed for unemployment in just seven days — and last week, another 6.6 million filed for unemployment for the second week in a row.
Nearly 661,000 Californians reported losing their jobs in the latest jobs report — down from 918,814 the week before.
Roughly one in seven Golden State employees have now filed for unemployment.
As noted by the LAist, in Los Angeles County alone, the unemployment rate jumped from 4.3 per cent in February to 6.3 percent in March, according to the California's Economic Development Department.
Across the U.S., many workers have lost hours, been furloughed, or lost their jobs entirely as non-essential businesses closed and others have been impacted financially due to the virus.
Nearly 12 million people nationwide are now receiving unemployment checks, which essentially matches the peak reached in January 2010, shortly after the Great Recession officially ended.
That figure is less than the number of applicants in part because it lags behind the number of first-time jobless claims figure by a week.
Additionally, many people who apply for unemployment aid are turned down and don’t actually receive checks.
A majority of states have issued stay-at-home orders for 95 per cent of the country to prevent the spread of the outbreak.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he won’t ease such orders until he sees consecutive weeks of declining hospitalizations and widespread testing.
Newsom said he wants to be able to test over 25,000 people a day, but the state has lagged behind in creating a strong testing operation.
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The governor, however, has claimed that California has bent the “curve” of new cases.
As of Saturday morning, more than 706,000 people in the U.S. tested positive for the coronavirus, with almost 30,000 of them in California alone.
The state has seen more than 1,000 deaths — with at least 501 just in Los Angeles County.
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