Goldman Sachs prediction: Unemployment claims will surge to an eye-popping 2.25 million

While the Trump administration is asking states to not disclose exact unemployment claim numbers as coronavirus-related jobless claims mount, Goldman Sachs feels no such compunction to stay quiet: The firm predicts that new claims will spike to a whopping 2.25 million, the largest one-week jump in history.

Last week’s 281,000 claims were already a 33% leap from the prior weeks’ claims, and one of the biggest one-week jumps on record, which headlines called “staggering.” Unemployment websites nationwide have been crashing this week under a deluge of new claimants whose jobs have been lost as a result of COVID-19.

During the 2007-2009 recession, new jobless claims peaked at 655,000. Goldman’s estimates are just predictions, based on claims from early this week in dozens of states.