Unemployment claims wipe out nearly all job gains of the past decade

Jobless claims totaled 5.2 million last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, erasing a decade of job gains in just one month of the coronavirus crisis.

While down about 1.3 million from the previous week, the latest weekly report brought the one-month total of job losses to about 22 million due to the shutdown from the pandemic. The previous three weeks of job losses had totaled 16.8 million.

Since the recession of 2008-09 ended, employers had created about 22 million jobs.

The head of a conservative small-business group said the mounting job losses highlight the need for Democrats to approve extra money for the $350 billion emergency “Paycheck Protection Program.”

“The jobless claims would have been higher were it not for the Paycheck Protection Program. Millions of small businesses are hanging in the balance, millions of lives and livelihoods are on the line right now,” said Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the Job Creators Network. “These numbers will continue to rise and we must move quickly and provide another supplement of loans to small business.”

The PPP, which provides grants of up to $10 million for small businesses to keep employees on the payroll for two months, has run out of money after less than two weeks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer oppose an administration bid to add $250 billion to the fund, saying Congress should also approve hundreds of billions more for other emergency relief programs.

Mr. Ortiz said the administration should add even more to the PPP.

“Based on the success and clear need, not only should Senate Democrats stop blocking the $250 billion the administration requested, but they should work with Congress to make the PPP a $700 billion program and add an additional $100 billion,” he said. “I urge Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi to table their partisan ideological game and work with the president and Republicans to get another round of supplemental loans to small business — fast — or the shutting of more small business doors will be on them.”