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The People Hit Hardest By Pandemic Job Loss : 1A "Inequality has been rising in the United States for decades upon decades," economist Erik Hurst says. We're seeing these disparities in this recession as well.

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The People Hit Hardest By Pandemic Job Loss

The People Hit Hardest By Pandemic Job Loss

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With shops and factories closed nationwide due to the coronavirus pandemic, nearly all of the jobs created in the US economy in the last decade were wiped out in March and April. OLIVIER DOULIERY/OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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OLIVIER DOULIERY/OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

With shops and factories closed nationwide due to the coronavirus pandemic, nearly all of the jobs created in the US economy in the last decade were wiped out in March and April.

OLIVIER DOULIERY/OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

Everyone's been burned by the COVID-19 shutdowns. But some sectors—and some demographics—have been hit harder than others.

In April, the unemployment rate for women climbed to 15.5 percent. The rate for Latinos jumped to 18.9 percent—the highest in the nation.

The leisure and hospitality industry lost 47 percent of its positions. And the healthcare industry has also experienced record job losses—1.4 million.

We spoke with two economists who helped us interpret the data.

Erik Hurst, deputy director of the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago and Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute joined us.

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