4.4 million Americans sought jobless benefits last week, as economic pain continued across the United States

More than 4.4 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, according to the Labor Department, a signal that the tidal wave of job losses continues to grow during the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s the fifth-straight week that job losses were measured in the millions. From March 15 to April 18, 26.5 million have likely been laid off or furloughed. Jobless figures on this scale haven’t been seen since the Great Depression. The amount of jobs lost in that brief span effectively erased all the jobs created following the 2008 financial crisis.

The new weekly total comes on top of 22 million Americans who had sought benefits in previous weeks, a volume that has overwhelmed state processing systems. Economists estimate the national unemployment rate sits somewhere between 15 and 20 percent, much higher than during the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009. The unemployment rate at the peak of the Great Depression was around 25 percent.

The figure came around economist predictions, which were expected “to be staggering, but not growing, which is a small mercy,” said Julia Pollak, labor economist at ZipRecruiter. For comparison, 5.2 million people filed unemployment claims for the week ending April 11.

Pollack said many businesses quickly “cut to the bone” when they realized how the pandemic would gut sales. Now, many of the new layoffs stem from businesses news organizations and tech companies that weren’t directly affected by people staying home, but are suffering the consequences of vanishing ad revenue and paid subscriptions.

“We see declines across every major industry and state, although the declines hit industries at different times,” Pollak said.

Meanwhile, consumer spending, the engine behind the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, has evaporated. If they’re still operating, offices are working with skeleton staffs and staring down months of dismal revenue.