Historic Unemployment Claims In Alaska During April

"Free Coffee & Doughnuts For The Unemployed" (Photo in Chicago, 1931)

To show how kind and generous he was the Chicago mobster, Al Capone, set up his own version of a Dunkin' Donuts & Soup Kitchen during the Great Depression (above.) This is an historic photo of men lining up for free coffee. It's not a sight any of us wanted to see ever again, and hopefully we won't. But...

Alaska had 48,238 unemployment claims in April, which was four times higher than normal, the State Department of Labor & Workforce Development reported on June 9th.

According to state economist Jenna Luhrs on station KINY in Juneau, in the whole of 2019 the state saw only 29,000 claims.

 She said that 80% of the recent unemployment claims stemmed from the coronavirus pandemic, and that the largest group was in the "leisure and hospitality" sector, especially food service. The state says that 10,000 people in Alaska claiming unemployment were under 30 years old, and 26,000 of the people filing were doing it for the first time.