The Labor Department releases the May jobs report this morning and it's expected to be historically bad. Things are improving, but slowly.
Bankrate.com's Mark Hamrick says the numbers will be horrifying.
"We'll likely see an unemployment rate that's officially reported at close to 20%."
But Hamrick says we probably shouldn't throw around the word 'depression' casually.
"The Depression was characterized by both the depth and duration and the duration was ten to twelve years; no one is forecasting that that is likely to be the outcome of the current downturn."
Hamrick says many economists expect the May 2021 jobless rate to be equal to the worst of the Great Recession a dozen years ago.
"We'll have an elevated unemployment rate at least through early next year with a jobless rate at 10% rate in May of 2021."
Bankrate says 4 out of 5 economists it surveyed say we're in a recession and others say it's a depression or something else.