Another million file for unemployment
Illinois claims rise slightly as Pritzker moves to accept extra $300-a-week offer from feds
New claims for unemployment insurance persist above 1 million a week, crushing hopes for a rapid recovery from the economic collapse brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. (Shutterstock)
By Ted Cox
Another million idled workers filed for unemployment benefits last week.
The U.S. Department of Labor announced in its weekly unemployment report Thursday that 1 million people filed for benefits nationwide last week — a decrease of about 100,000 from the 1.1 million who filed the week before.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the economy in mid-March — when 3.3 million workers filed in a week, shattering the previous record of 695,000 set during the 1982 recession — every week has seen more than 1 million claims filed but one, in the Labor Department report two weeks ago. In the meantime, a new record of 6.9 million claims filed in a week was set at the of March.
According to the department, 27 million U.S. workers were on some form of unemployment insurance as of Aug. 8, down a million from the week before, but well above the 1.6 million workers receiving benefits a year ago. The department set the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate at 9.9 percent. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the official August unemployment rate next month, after setting it at 10.2 percent in July.
According to the report, Illinois claims rose slightly, ending weeks of decline. Some 25,000 idled Illinois workers filed for conventional benefits last week, up from 22,000 the week before. Claims for expanded federal benefits for independent contractors, freelancers, and so-called gig workers under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program inched up from 3,500 to 4,200.
Gov. Pritzker indicated earlier this week that the state is working to accept the $300 a week in extra benefits recently proposed by President Trump to replace the $600 a week from a federal coronavirus relief package that expired at the end of July. Trump proposed shifting $44 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with the initial demand that states had to chip in an additional $100 a week in benefits. When states strapped for cash due to lost tax revenue balked, the Trump administration dropped that requirement.
“We have begun that process” to accept the extra benefits, Pritzker said earlier this week. “It takes a lot of setup on an internal basis for us to move forward with that, and so that’s what we’ve been doing.”
Democrats included an extension of the $600 a week in extra benefits in the HEROES Act relief package that passed the U.S. House in May. But Republicans in the Senate resisted extending the extra benefits, claiming it was keeping unemployed workers from returning to their jobs — resulting in an impasse that has blocked any additional federal relief.
CNN reported Thursday that the expiration of those extra benefits had not driven workers back to their jobs — borne out by new weekly claims persisting above 1 million. CNN quoted PNC Chief Economist Gus Faucher as saying: “So far there is no indication yet that the expiration of an extra $600 per week in UI benefits at the end of July 31 has led to a big drop in unemployment.”