Corona virus in Michigan .
The state HEALTH department reports TWO DEATHS AND 204 NEW CASES OF THE CORONA VIRUS. THIS IS THE FOURTH TIME IN SIX DAYS that COVID DEATHS HAVE BEEN
IN THE SINGLE DIGITS.
Delta Airlines says 500 employees have the corona virus.
Delta says it’s losing 30 million dollars a day.
Although the US economy has shown signs of improvement in recent weeks as lockdown restrictions have eased, millions of Americans are still seeking unemployment aid to make ends meet.
Another 1.5 million workers filed for first-time jobless benefits last week, the Department of Labor said Thursday. Initial claims have been falling every week since peaking at 6.9 million in the last week of March. Economists think this means that most job losses due to the pandemic are behind us.
Overall, more than 45 million Americans have now filed for first-time benefits since mid-March.
Stripping out the seasonal adjustments, initial claims stood at 1.4 million last week. These adjustments smooth out the data in normal times but add unnecessary noise in this unprecedented situation.
Continuing claims, which count people who filed for benefits for at least two weeks in a row, stood at 20.5 million, only slightly down from 20.6 million in the prior week. Experts are looking for this number to come down substantially over the summer. If it doesn’t, it could mean that the labor market recovery is much slower than hoped.
On top of the regular unemployment benefits, 760,526 workers in 46 states filed initial claims for pandemic unemployment assistance. These additional benefits were created by Congress to provide aid to independent contractors, the self-employed and gig workers among others.