Last spring, a pandemic the likes of which the world hadn’t seen in a century forced leaders to shutter their economies in ways few people living today had ever experienced.
The impacts were swift. Soon after Washington Gov. Jay Inslee ordered people to stay home and restricted in-person services of nearly all kinds in March, the state saw a sudden, unprecedented increase in unemployment.
Previously, the worst month for initial unemployment claims had been amid the Great Recession, when 90,331 people signed up in December 2008. Compare that to March 2020, when 306,544 people made initial claims, and then April when another 457,221 signed up for benefits.
