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+1 million
20,500,000jobs lost in April
Source: Dept. of Labor
GUILBERT GATES, ELLA KOEZE AND BILL MARSH/THE NEW YORK TIMES
MONTHLY CHANGE IN JOBS SINCE THE END OF WORLD WAR II
The American economyplunged deeper into crisis lastmonth, losing 20.5 million jobs asthe unemployment rate jumped to14.7 percent, the worst devasta-tion since the Great Depression.
The Labor Department’smonthly report on Friday pro-vided the clearest picture yet ofthe breadth and depth of the eco-nomic damage — and how swiftlyit spread — as the coronaviruspandemic swept the country.
Job losses have encompassedthe entire economy, affecting ev-ery major industry. Areas likeleisure and hospitality had thebiggest losses in April, but evenhealth care shed more than a mil-lion jobs. Low-wage workers, in-cluding many women and mem-bers of racial and ethnic minor-ities, have been hit especiallyhard.
“It’s literally off the charts,”said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S.economics at Bank of America.“What would typically takemonths or quarters to play out in arecession happened in a matter ofweeks this time.”
From almost any vantage point,it was a bleak report. The share ofthe adult population with a job, at51.3 percent, was the lowest onrecord. Nearly 11 million peoplereported working part time be-cause they couldn’t find full-timework, up from about four millionbefore the pandemic.
If anything, the numbers proba-bly understate the economic dis-tress.
Millions more Americans havefiled unemployment claims sincethe data was collected in mid-April. What’s more, because of is-sues with the way workers areclassified, the Labor Departmentsaid the actual unemploymentrate last month might have beencloser to 20 percent.
It remains possible that the re-covery, too, will be swift, and thatas the pandemic retreats, busi-nesses that were fundamentallyhealthy before the virus will re-open, rehire and return more orless to normal. The one bright spotin Friday’s report was that nearly80 percent of the unemployed saidthey had been temporarily laid offand expected to return to theirjobs in the coming months.
President Trump endorsed thisview in an interview Friday morn-ing on Fox News. “Those jobs willall be back, and they’ll be back
U.S. UNEMPLOYMENT IS WORST SINCE DEPRESSION
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZand BEN CASSELMAN
BY RACE
APRIL UNEMPLOYMENTNATIONAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
BY GENDER BY AGE GROUP
14.7%
20to24
25to34
55+45to54
35to44WomenMenHispanicBlackWhite
25.7
14.513.6
12.311.5
16.2
13.5
18.9
16.7
14.2
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
4
8
12%RECESSIONS
April’s Rate of 14.7%Touches All Parts
of Economy
C M Y K Nxxx,2020-05-09,A,001,Bs-4C,E2
We asked readers to share their experi-ences with the walks they are taking whileliving under quarantine. PAGE A14
TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-15
A Walk a Day to Get ByGolf courses are open nationwide, provid-ing a respite from the claustrophobia ofstay-at-home orders. PAGE B9
SPORTSSATURDAY B9-11
A Good Walk, Unspoiled
As it prepared to honor those lost in WorldWar II, Russia decided to protect livesagainst the current threat. PAGE A6
Moscow’s Paused CelebrationHalf of the N.B.A.’s 30 teams were clearedto open for practice, but only two did as aleague largely remained cautious. PAGE B10
Anyone Up to Shoot Hoops?
The president craves a nationally tele-vised coronation, but North Carolina maynot be fully open by August. PAGE A18
NATIONAL A18-21
G.O.P. Convention Qualms
Steven Coutinho, railing against govern-ment theft, is insisting on accountability.The Saturday Profile. PAGE A16
INTERNATIONAL A16-17
Banker Shakes Up Suriname
Under the governor’s reopening plan,theaters, museums and community artcenters upstate will open well before cityvenues. Will visitors come? PAGE C1
ARTS C1-7
New York’s Return to the Arts
“American Idol” and “The Voice,” usuallyoversize spectacles, have become testcases for TV under lockdown. PAGE C1
A Shot at Stardom, Revised
Timothy Egan PAGE A26
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27
U(D54G1D)y+=!}!.!$!"
Continued on Page A13
Across the country, rank-and-file prosecu-tors cringed at the pardon of Michael T.Flynn, another extraordinary interventionby the attorney general. PAGE A20
Politics and the Justice Dept.
MEXICO CITY — The Mexicangovernment is not reporting hun-dreds, possibly thousands, ofdeaths from the coronavirus inMexico City, dismissing anxiousofficials who have tallied morethan three times as many fatali-ties in the capital than the govern-ment publicly acknowledges, ac-cording to officials and confiden-tial data reviewed by The NewYork Times.
The tensions have come to ahead in recent weeks, with MexicoCity alerting the government tothe deaths repeatedly, hoping itwill come clean to the public aboutthe true toll of the virus on the na-tion’s biggest city and, by exten-sion, the country at large.
But that has not happened. Doc-tors in overwhelmed hospitals inMexico City say the reality of theepidemic is being hidden from thecountry. In some hospitals, pa-
tients lie on the floor, splayed onmattresses. Elderly people arepropped up on metal chairs be-cause there are not enough beds,while patients are turned away tosearch for space in less-preparedhospitals. Many die while search-ing, several doctors said.
“It’s like we doctors are living intwo different worlds,” said Dr. Gio-vanna Avila, who works at Hospi-tal de Especialidades BelisarioDomínguez. “One is inside of thehospital with patients dying all thetime. And the other is when wewalk out onto the streets and seepeople walking around, clueless ofwhat is going on and how bad thesituation really is.”
Mexico City officials have tabu-lated more than 2,500 deaths fromthe virus and serious respiratoryillnesses that doctors suspect arerelated to Covid-19, the data re-
As Official Toll Ignores Reality,Mexico’s Hospitals Are Overrun
By AZAM AHMED
A Mexico City crematory. Regional virus deaths are officially low.DANIEL BEREHULAK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Continued on Page A7
WASHINGTON — Shortlyafter admitting guilt to a federaljudge in December 2017 for lyingto the F.B.I., Michael T. Flynnissued a statement saying whathe did was wrong, and “throughmy faith in God, I am working toset things right.”
It turns out that the onlyhigher power that Mr. Flynnneeded was Attorney GeneralWilliam P. Barr.
Mr. Barr’s extraordinary deci-sion to drop the criminal caseagainst Mr. Flynn shocked legalexperts, won President Trump’spraise and prompted a careerprosecutor to quit the case. Itwas the latest in Mr. Barr’ssteady effort to undo the resultsof the investigation by Robert S.Mueller III, the special counsel.Mr. Barr has portrayed his effortas rectifying injustice, and thepresident more bluntly as anexercise in political payback.
In his decisions and publiccomments over the past year, Mr.Barr has built an alternate narra-tive to the one that Mr. Muellerlaid out in his voluminous report.Where the special counsel fo-cused on Russia’s expansiveeffort to interfere in the 2016election, the Trump campaign’sopenness to it and the president’sdetermination to impede theinquiry, Mr. Barr has focusedinstead on the investigators. Hehas suggested that they wereunleashed by law enforcementand intelligence officials bent onbringing political harm to Mr.Trump.
In Flynn Case,Russia InquiryIs Barr’s Target
By MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — In his ea-gerness to reopen the country,President Trump faces the chal-lenge of convincing Americansthat it would be safe to go backto the workplace. But the pastfew days have demonstrated thateven his own workplace may notbe safe from the coronavirus.
Vice President Mike Pence’spress secretary tested positivefor the virus on Friday, forcing adelay in the departure of AirForce Two while a half-dozenother members of his staff weretaken off the plane for furthertesting. That came only a dayafter word that one of the presi-dent’s own military valets hadbeen infected.
All of which raised an obviousquestion: If it is so hard to main-tain a healthy environment at1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, themost famous office address inthe world, where staff membersare tested regularly, some everyday, then how can businessesacross the country without any-where near as much access tothe same resources establish asafe space for their workers?
“The virus is in the WhiteHouse, any way you look at it,”said Juliette Kayyem, a formerassistant secretary of homelandsecurity under President BarackObama. “Whether it’s containedor not, we will know soonenough. But the fact that a place— secured, with access to thebest means to mitigate harm —is not able to stop the virus has
If West WingStill Isn’t Safe,Is Any Office?
By PETER BAKERand MICHAEL CROWLEY
BRUNSWICK, Ga. — When theGlynn County Police Departmentarrived at the scene of a fatalshooting in February in south-eastern Georgia, officers encoun-tered a former colleague with thevictim’s blood on his hands.
They took down his version ofevents and let him and his adultson, who had fired the shots, gohome.
Later that day, Wanda Cooper,the mother of the 25-year-old vic-tim, Ahmaud Arbery, received acall from a police investigator. Sherecounted later that the investiga-
tor said her son had been involvedin a burglary and was killed by“the homeowner,” an inaccurateversion of what had happened.
More than two months afterthat fatal confrontation, the Geor-gia Bureau of Investigation, whichtook over the case this week, ar-rested the former officer, GregoryMcMichael, and his son, TravisMcMichael, on charges of murderand aggravated assault.
The charges — which came af-ter the release of a graphic videoshowing the killing as the twowhite men confront Mr. Arbery,who was African-American —made clear the depths of the localdepartment’s bungling of the
case, which was just the latest in aseries of troubling episodes in-volving its officers.
And it was one element of thebroader potential breakdown ofthe justice system in South Geor-gia. Attorney General Chris Carr,through a spokeswoman, said onFriday that he planned to start areview of all of the relevant play-ers in that system.
Mr. Carr’s office has already de-termined that George E. Barnhill,a district attorney who was as-signed the case in February butrecused himself late last month,should have never taken it on.Among his many conflicts: Hisson once worked alongside one ofthe suspects at the local prosecu-tor’s office.
S. Lee Merritt, a lawyer repre-senting Mr. Arbery’s family, hascalled for a federal civil rights in-vestigation focused not only onthe men who pursued Mr. Arbery,but the broader justice system.
“It’s small-town America,” Mr.Merritt said in an interview on
Georgia Killing Puts Spotlight on a Police Force’s Troubled HistoryThis article is by Rick Rojas, Rich-
ard Fausset and Serge F. Kovaleski.Long Path to Arrests of
Ex-Officer and Son inBlack Man’s Death
Continued on Page A21
THE FACES A look at 21 people invarious fields who have lost theirjobs during the pandemic. PAGE B5Continued on Page A20 Continued on Page A10
NEWS ANALYSIS WHITE HOUSE MEMO
Late Edition
VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,688 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2020
Today, clouds and sunshine, strayshowers, windy, chilly, high 49. To-night, mostly clear, brisk, cold, low39.Tomorrow, clouds and sunshine,high 62. Weather map is on Page C8.
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