Quote from Savings Beagle on April 9, 2020, 2:52 pm

And the economic shocks just keep coming.

Although, it's not as if the high number of unemployment claims filings were unexpected.

This week's unemployment filings came in a 6.6 million.  Add that to the roughly 10 million from last week and the week before that and we hit the staggering 16 million+ mark.

Which equates to an unemployment rate approaching 14%...a huge jump from the 3.5% rate just a few weeks ago.

As we've said before, this is not a structural issue with the economy (yet), rather, a result of government-mandated closures of large swaths of the U.S. economy to mitigate the spread of coronavirus.

The problem the U.S. is facing, though, is that the longer this shutdown continues, the less it is about government actions and the more it's about businesses just not making any money.

The efforts by the federal government and the Federal Reserve Bank to offset the economic hit both individuals and businesses are taking are slowly rolling out.

Check in the amount of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child should be on their way in the next few weeks.

And small and medium-sized businesses should see relief in the next week or so if they've filed documentation for assistance under the Paycheck Protection Program which was part of the phase 3 relief bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump at the end of March.

Will these efforts be enough to smooth over the economic downturn we're already seeing, and the lingering effects we will see once restrictions are lifted?

I'm guessing not.  Except to see even more federal money funneled to various sectors of the economy to boost bank accounts and balance sheets.

Money that just isn't there to begin with.