Nearly 65,000 people in Missouri and Kansas filed unemployment claims last week as the coronavirus shut down many parts of the U.S. economy.
Federal data released Thursday shows that 40,508 Missourians filed initial unemployment claims for the week ending March 21. That’s up from 4,016 the previous week — an increase of more than 900%.
In Kansas, 23,687 workers filed new unemployment claims last week. That’s a spike of 1,250% over the 1,755 Kansans who filed claims the week prior.
Across the country, the seasonally adjusted number of initial unemployment claims filed last week increased to nearly 3.3 million, an increase of more than 3 million over the previous week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
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