"We're going to be looking at an unemployment rate that approaches rates that I think we saw during the Great Depression," Hassett said in an interview with the ABC broadcaster.
The unemployment rate during the Great Depression peaked in 1933 when it reached 25 percent. From 1931 to 1940, unemployment remained at a level above 14 percent. Since then, unemployment has surpassed a 10 percent threshold only twice — in 1982 and 2009.
Meanwhile, 26 million Americans have filed unemployment claims in February-March of this year.
The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that unemployment will rise from 3.8 percent in Q1 2020 to 14 percent in Q2, 16 percent in Q3, and will drop to 10.1 percent by the end of 2021.