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Last week, total initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims rose for the fourth week straight, from 1.6 million to 1.7 million. Of last week’s 1.7 million, 884,000 applied for regular state UI and 839,000 applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. 1/ https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
A reminder: Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) is the federal program for workers who are not eligible for regular unemployment insurance, like gig workers. It provides up to 39 weeks of benefits and expires at the end of this year. 2/
Last week was the 25th straight week total initial claims were far greater than the worst week of the Great Recession (GR). If you restrict to regular state claims (b/c we didn’t have PUA in the GR), initial claims were still greater than the 2nd-worst week of the GR. 3/
(Remember when looking back farther than two weeks, you must compare not-seasonally-adjusted data, because DOL changed—improved!—the way they do seasonal adjustments starting with last week’s release, but they unfortunately didn’t correct the earlier data.) 4/
Most states provide 26 weeks of regular state UI. After an individual exhausts those benefits, they can move onto Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which is an add'l 13 weeks of regular state UI (and is only available to people who were on regular state UI). 5/
Given that continuing claims for regular state benefits have been elevated since the third week in March, we should begin to see PEUC spike up dramatically soon (starting around the week ending September 19th). 6/
(Reminder, PEUC, the 13 week extension of benefits for people on regular state UI, is different from Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, or PUC, the now-expired $600 additional weekly benefit, which anyone on any UI program had been eligible for.) 7/
It’s important to remember that people haven’t just lost their jobs. An estimated 12 million workers and their family members have lost employer-provided health insurance due to COVID. 8/ https://www.epi.org/publication/health-insurance-and-the-covid-19-shock/ @joshbivens_DC @benzipperer
DOL numbers suggest that right now, a total of 32.4 million workers are either on unemployment benefits, have been approved and are waiting for benefits, or have applied recently and are waiting to get approved. 9/
HOWEVER, the above chart is an overestimate of the number of people “on” UI, for 2 reasons. First, regular state UI & PUA claims should be nonoverlapping—that is how DOL has directed agencies to report them—but some folks may be erroneously counted as being in both programs. 10/
And, some states are likely including some back weeks in their continuing PUA claims, which would also lead to double counting. For more info, see the discussion around Figure 3 in this paper. 11/ https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2020055pap.pdf
This chart shows continuing claims in all programs over time (the latest data for this are from August 22). Continuing claims are more than 28 million above where they were a year ago. (But, the above caveat about double counting applies here, too.) 12/
Folks have asked how to square the UI numbers with the monthly jobs numbers. This thread from #JobsDay last week explains it (tweets 6-8 show how the number of officially unemployed is “undercounted," & tweets 20-24 show how UI claims are overcounted). 13/ https://twitter.com/hshierholz/status/1301862294788255745
Republicans in the Senate allowed the across-the-board $600 increase in weekly UI benefits to expire at the end of July. Last week was the sixth week of unemployment in this pandemic for which recipients did not get the extra $600. 14/
That means most people on UI are now are forced to get by on around 40% of their pre-virus earnings. It goes without saying that most folks can’t exist on 40% of prior earnings without experiencing a sharp drop in living standards and enormous pain. 15/
In early August, Trump issued a mockery of an exec memorandum. It's supposed to give recipients an extra $300 or $400 in benefits, but in reality even this drastically reduced benefit is delayed, is only available for a few weeks, and is not available at all for many. 16/
This chart from @TCFdotorg shows how much less in benefits people are getting under Trump’s executive memorandum than they did under the across-the-board $600 benefit. 17/ https://tcf.org/content/report/unemployment-insurance-data-dashboard/#lwa
The executive memorandum’s main impact was to divert attention from the desperate need for the real relief that can only come through legislation. Congress must act, but Republicans in the Senate are blocking progress. 18/
Blocking the $600 is cruel and terrible economics. The $600 was supporting a huge amount of spending by people who now have to make drastic cuts. The spending made possible by the $600 was supporting 5.1 million jobs. Cutting that $600 means cutting those jobs. 19/
The map in Figure B of this blog post shows many jobs will be lost by state over the next year now that the $600 unemployment benefit has been allowed to expire. 20/ https://www.epi.org/blog/cutting-off-the-600-boost-to-unemployment-benefits-would-be-both-cruel-and-bad-economics-new-personal-income-data-show-just-how-steep-the-coming-fiscal-cliff-will-be/
The labor market is still 11.5 million jobs below where we were before the virus hit. Now is not the time to cut benefits that support jobs. 21/ https://www.epi.org/press/six-months-into-the-recession-and-a-11-5-million-jobs-deficit-remains/
But what about the supposed work disincentive effect of the $600? Rigorous empirical studies show that any work disincentive effect of the $600 was so minor that it *cannot even be detected.* 22/
For example, a study by Yale economists found no evidence that recipients of more generous benefits were less likely to return to work. 23/ https://news.yale.edu/2020/07/27/yale-study-finds-expanded-jobless-benefits-did-not-reduce-employment
Case in point: in May/June/July —with the $600 in place—9.2 MILLION people went back to work. A large share of those were making more on UI than they had made at their prior job, but it did not keep them from going back. People need jobs more than temporary benefits. 24/
Further, there are 8.5 million more unemployed workers than job openings, meaning millions will remain jobless no matter what they do. Blocking the $600 cannot incentivize people to get jobs that are not there. 25/ https://www.epi.org/chart/economic-indicators-average-jolts-job-openings-levels-and-unemployment-levels-2000-2019/?view=embed&embed_template=charts_v2013_08_21&embed_date=20200910&onp=162347&utm_source=epi_press&utm_medium=chart_embed&utm_campaign=charts_v2#
And, continued claims are *higher* now than they were when the $600 expired (look at the chart in tweet 12 of this thread). Hmm, turns out it wasn’t the $600 that was keeping them on UI, it was the fact that they CAN’T FIND WORK that was keeping them on UI. 26/
Cutting the $600 is also exacerbating racial inequality. Due to the impact of historic & current systemic racism, Black and Brown workers have seen more job loss in this pandemic, and have less wealth to fall back on. They are being hurt worse by the expiration of the $600. 27/
This is particularly true for Black and Brown women and their families, because in this recession, these women have seen the largest job losses of all. The Senate must extend the UI provisions of the CARES Act. 28/
And as always, here's this tweet thread in blog post form. 29/ https://www.epi.org/blog/ui-claims-rising-as-jobs-remain-scarce-senate-republicans-must-stop-blocking-the-restoration-of-ui-benefits/
This is a great new piece from @LilyRoberts12 and @Just_Schweitzer showing that there is *nowhere* a worker can afford to live on unemployment insurance alone. Congress needs to increase benefits. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2020/09/10/490265/cant-afford-live-anywhere-united-states-solely-unemployment-insurance/
