Another 4.3 million workers are expected to have filed state unemployment claims last week, bringing the total number seeking benefits to over 26 million since states started shutting down in the second half of March to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The number of jobs lost rose to 22.025 million over the prior four weeks, erasing nearly all of the 22.442 million jobs recovered since the Great Recession. During the financial crisis the number of jobs lost totaled 8.7 million. “The pace of losses is slowing, but the pain is compounding,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. Economists are closely ... (full story)