Joanie Courtney, chief workforce analyst at EmployBridge, on January’s job report amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The number of Americans applying for first-time unemployment benefits rose last week as the coronavirus pandemic continues to cause a large number of layoffs.
Figures released by the Department of Labor on Thursday show that 793,000 Americans first filed for unemployment in the week ending Feb. 6, higher than the 757,000 predicted by Refinitiv economists.
The number has remained stubbornly high for months, hovering around four times its pre-crisis levels, although well below the nearly 7 million peak reached when stay-at-home orders were first issued in March. Nearly 70 million Americans, or about 40% of the workforce, filed for unemployment benefits during the pandemic.
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Ongoing claims, or the number of Americans consecutively receiving unemployment benefits, has fallen to 4.54 million, down about 145,000 from the previous week. The report found that about 20.4 million Americans received some sort of unemployment benefit through January 23, up from about 2.5 million from the previous week.
Many more Americans are receiving unemployment assistance from two federal programs that Congress set up with the passage of the CARES Act in March: one provides assistance to the self-employed, handyman, and others who are typically ineligible for benefits, and the other provides assistance to those who have exhausted their government benefits.
The federal government revamped these programs in late December with the approval of a $ 900 billion relief package that includes a $ 300 per week supplemental unemployment benefit, a one-time $ 600 incentive check for most adults, and new funding for a small business . rescue program.
Congressional Democrats, who saw that emergency relief as just the beginning of emergency relief, are storming ahead with the passing of a nearly $ 2 trillion stimulus package with no Republican buy-ins.
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A draft proposal released by the House Ways and Means Committee this week includes extended unemployment benefits of $ 400 a week through August and a third incentive check worth $ 1,400 for Americans earning less than $ 75,000 a year.
If lawmakers don’t provide unemployed aid, 11.4 million Americans will lose their benefits on March 14, according to a new report released Wednesday by The Century Foundation, an impartial think tank.
The unemployment benefits passed in the December stimulus package are responsible for lifting more than 7 million Americans out of poverty in January, but Americans will need strong unemployment benefits to be in effect at least until the end of September if they hit the storm. Want to weather the pandemic, ”the report said.
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