WTF Just Happened Today

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Subscribe: Get the Daily Update in your inbox for free

• Daily Damage Report.

• Global: Total confirmed cases ~1,583,000; Total deaths: ~95,000; Total recoveries: ~351,000. (Johns Hopkins University)

• U.S.: Total confirmed cases ~454,000; Total deaths: ~16,300; Total recoveries: ~25,000

• Markets: Dow ????; S&P 500 ????; Nasdaq ????

• Live Blogs: New York Times / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / NBC News / CNBC / The Guardian

1/ Another 6.6 million Americans filed first-time unemployment claims last week — marking the largest and fastest string of job losses since 1948. More than 17 million new claims have been filed over the last three weeks – or about 10% of the U.S. workforce. Economists estimate that the U.S. unemployment rate is now 13% – the worst level of joblessness the nation has seen since the Great Depression. In February, the unemployment rate was 3.5%. The number of jobs lost in the last three weeks now exceeds the 15 million that it took 18 months during the Great Recession, from 2007 to 2009. (CNBC / Associated Press / Washington Post / New York Times / Politico / CNN / Vox / NBC News / Wall Street Journal)

• The International Monetary Fund sees the world economy suffering its worst recession since the Great Depression this year. The IMF’s baseline outlook is for a partial recovery in the global economy in 2021 – if the pandemic fades in the second half of this year. (Bloomberg)

2/ The Senate stalled on a proposal to add $250 billion in the small business coronavirus relief fund. Mitch McConnell had sought unanimous consent to approve more funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, but Democrats objected, calling the proposal “a political stunt” since the Paycheck Protection Program hasn’t run out of money, but other programs have. Democrats also said the PPP process needs to be streamlined to make it easier for small businesses to get loans. In turn, Democrats tried to add additional funding for hospitals and state and local government...

Visit WTF Just Happened Today? for more news and headlines, brought to you by Matt Kiser. The WTFJHT Podcast is narrated and produced by Joe Amditis.