It’s time for us to begin the process of reopening the economy. Nearly 17 million Americans—or 11 percent of the U.S. labor force—have filed for unemployment benefits in the last three weeks. About 6.6 million people filed last week alone.

In just the past week, more than six million American workers applied for unemployment benefits as the United States entered another month of social distancing and quarantine in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Numbers released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the economy hemorrhaged more than 700,000 jobs in the month of March. The St. Louis Fed recently predicted that unemployment might hit 32 percent, greater than at the height of the Great Depression. These figures are dire.