As of Thursday, the US Labor Department had 6.6 million Americans file for unemployment insurance, during the week ending on April 4.
According to Business Insider, that means that 16.8 million people applied for unemployment within three-weeks—a record for that period.
This comes after a record 10 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance, during the last two weeks of March due to coronavirus-induced layoffs.
Julia Pollak, labor economist at ZipRecruiter said "It really is completely unprecedented...(a) cascade of economic pain."
Experts say that the US anticipates that there will be a recession and a huge jump in the unemployment rate, due to the coronavirus pandemic.