These are very large numbers by historical standards, but this is a rather unique shock that is unlike any other experienced by the U.S. economy in the last 100 years,” Faria-e-Castro wrote in the
research paper published last week.
Faria-e-Castro’s projection is even bleaker than the
30 percent unemployment rate predicted by St. Louis Fed President James Bullard earlier in the month. He says he arrived at the figures by combining data in two other blogs by Fed colleagues: One estimates that 66.8 million Americans working in high-risk occupations, such as sales, production, food preparation and service. Other research concluded that 27.3 million workers have “high-contact” jobs, like barber and flight attendant, that require them to interact frequently with other people.
Fario-e-Castro took the average of the two figures to calculate that 47 million workers may lose their jobs. If the number is indeed that high, it would bring the total number of jobless Americans to 52.81 million, he said.
