US: Biden claims Trump's neglect makes economic crisis harder

Former Vice President Joe Biden seized on the heightened economic crisis in the U.S. as a result of coronavirus as part of his attempt to cast President Donald Trump as caring only about the wealthiest Americans.

Biden in an online broadcast with NowThis News said on Friday that President Trump has caused an "an economic disaster" and "spent three years tilting the playing field" in favor of the wealthy instead of the middle class.

The coronavirus crisis has sent the U.S. unemployment rate surging to 14.7%, a level last seen when the country was in the throes of the Depression and President Franklin D. Roosevelt was assuring Americans that the only thing to fear was fear itself.

Biden said: "It didn't have to be this way. Donald Trump utterly failed to prepare for this pandemic and delayed in taking the necessary steps to safeguard our nation against the near-worst-case-economic scenario we are now living."

The Labor Department said Friday that 20.5 million jobs vanished in April in the worst monthly loss on record, triggered by the coast-to-coast shutdowns of factories, stores, offices and other businesses. Unemployment is now at its highest point since 1939.

Over the past seven weeks, an estimated 33.5 million American workers have filed for unemployment benefits.

Friday's job-loss report captures just five weeks, it is based on a mid-April survey of businesses and households, and it is a net figure — that is, it takes into account the hiring surge at companies like Amazon and many grocery stores

Minorities and poor people have suffered the most from the shutdown. Job losses were especially severe among Latinos, whose unemployment rate leaped to 18.9% from 6% in March. The African-American rate jumped to 16.7%, while for whites it rose to 14.2%.