How COVID-19 Unemployment Compares to the Great Recession, Great Depression

More than 21 million Americans have lost their job during the last four weeks. Goldman Sachs predicts the jobless rate could rise to 15% in the months ahead. Such a level of unemployment would be much worse than the worst of the 2008-09 Great Recession, according to this comparison — but still a far cry from the depths of the Great Depression, when the unemployment rate hit 24.9% in 1933. 4/16/2020