COVID-19’s resurgence caused the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits to rise last week for the first time in nearly four months, evidence of the deepening economic pain the outbreak is causing.
The increase in weekly jobless claims to 1.4 million served to underscore the outsized role the unemployment insurance system is playing among the nation’s safety net programs—just when a $600 weekly federal aid payment for the jobless is set to expire at the end of this week.
All told, the Labor Department said today that the total number of people receiving jobless benefits fell 1.1 million to 16.2 million. That was a hopeful sign that even as layoffs remain persistently high, some companies are still recalling workers.
Last week’s pace of unemployment applications—the 18th straight time it’s topped 1 million—was up from 1.3 million the previous week. Before the pandemic, applications had never exceeded 700,000. An additional 975,000 applied last week for jobless aid under a separate program that has made self-employed and gig workers eligible for the first time. That figure isn’t adjusted for seasonal trends.
The stubbornly high number of layoffs reflects a pandemic that is causing both confirmed infections and deaths to creep up nationally. Laboratories are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating processing delays that experts say are undercutting the pandemic response. Read the full report.
