COVID-19 threat continues to drive joblessness in US

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to 860,000, a still historically high number that illustrates the broad economic damage continuing to take place nine months after the first case of COVID-19 was detected in the U.S.

The Labor Department said this morning that U.S. jobless claims fell by 33,000 form the previous week and that 12.6 million are collecting traditional unemployment benefits, compared with just 1.7 million a year ago.

Until the pandemic upended the operations of American companies, from factories to family diners, weekly jobless aid applications had never exceeded 700,000 in the U.S. They’ve topped 700,000 for 26 consecutive weeks.

Altogether, the Labor Department says 29.8 million people are receiving some form of unemployment benefits, though the figure may be inflated by double-counting by states. Analysts also worry about evidence that the number of people collecting special pandemic aid has been swollen by cases of fraud in California. Read the full story.