Unemployment rose much more sharply at the start of the pandemic than at the start of the Great Recession

Unemployment rates during the first six months of the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic, by race

Chart: Center for American Progress Source: Authors' calculations based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey: Unemployment Rates, 2008 and 2020," available at https://www.bls.gov/data/#unemployment (last accessed January 2021).