(200508) -- NEW YORK, May 8, 2020 (Xinhua) -- A pedestrian wearing a face mask walks past the New York State Department of Labor office in the Brooklyn borough of New York, the United States, on May 8, 2020. New data showed that U.S. employers cut a staggering 20.5 million jobs in April, erasing a decade of job gains since the global financial crisis and pushing the unemployment rate to a record 14.7 percent. While this marks the highest level of unemployment since the Great Depression, analysts said the figure does not capture the full scale of the COVID-19-induced job crisis, and the worst is yet to come. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua) (Photo by Xinhua/Sipa USA)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, lowering claims to 900,000. This is still a historically high level that points to further job cuts in a raging pandemic.
The Labor Department’s report underscored that President Joe Biden has inherited an economy that faltered this winter as virus cases spiked, cold weather restricted dining and federal rescue aid expired.
The government said that 5.1 million Americans are continuing to receive state jobless benefits, down from 5.2 million in the previous week. That signals that fewer people who are out of work are finding jobs.
