WHITFIELD: J.C. Penney has filed for bankruptcy. The pandemic was the final blow for the 118 year-old company struggling to overcome years of executive instability and damaging market trends. Meantime, retail sales were down a record 16.4 percent last month, which was even worse than experts had predicted. And adding to that misery, another 3 million people filed jobless claims last week, pushing the eight week unemployment claims to more than 36 million. CNN's Cristina Alesci is following all of this for us. So Cristina, what stood out to you in this economic, you know, data this week?</s>CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN POLITICS AND BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Those are some really grim economic headlines, Fred, for sure. But when you go beyond the headlines, there are three major trends that I'm watching. One, the American worker continues to bear the brunt of the pain here. When we talk about those 36 million Americans, we are talking about, for the most part, people who rely on a weekly paycheck for their income. We're not talking about people who rely on investments for their income. More disturbing than that, the most vulnerable seem to be the most hit here, 40 percent of households making less than $40,000 a year have lost a job. So it is no surprise that we continue to see the pain across the board. And retail sales plummet to the worst since the government started tracking this data. Now, what economists are saying, what my sources are telling me is that, we may have reached what's called peak pain. So things may get better from here. And that is certainly something that the Trump administration wants to see. We've seen several of Trump's advisers out this week basically downplaying some of this data and pointing to potential better days ahead. But just because we've reached peak pain in the data, does not mean the American worker has reached peak pain, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Cristina Alesci, a very grim outlook there. Thank you so much. All right, coming up, a four-hour drive for justice, details on today's Atlanta to Brunswick, Georgia, caravan to protest the death of Ahmaud Arbery.
Retail Sales Dive To Record Low In April.