The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits continued to surge at unprecedented levels, bringing the total number of jobless claims to more than 16 million over three weeks.
RT’s Boom Bust is joined by the former Fed insider Danielle DiMartino Booth to talk about the latest figures and the US central bank’s response.
“I think we will indeed see a fourth subsequent wave, subsequent week,” she says, explaining that the most populous states of the nation (including Florida, New York, California, and especially Texas) have a huge backlog of unemployment.
Booth points out that the unemployment insurance system and services are “simply overloaded” and cannot keep up.
The numbers will be much higher, climbing to 17 million, she says, noting: “In other words, the next two weeks we are going to see waves continuing to come through as these claims are processed.”
According to her, ten percent of Americans, one in every ten workers will be unemployed, and this is just the starting point.
“It seems like the Federal Reserve is doing everything possible for the largest employers in the country and for investors on Wall Street, but one week later after the rollout of this SBA [Small Business Administration – Ed.] program, you’ve still got way too many small businesses left behind,” Booth says.
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