Welp, by god, I’m doing this. Will keep it shorter than normal. 0/

Another 1.1 million people applied for UI last week, including 751,000 people who applied for regular state UI and 363,000 who applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). PUA expires in less than two months (more on that later). 1/

The 1.1 million who applied for UI last week was little changed (a decrease of 3,000) from the prior week’s figures. 2/

Last week was the 33rd 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 are still 3.6 times where they were a year ago. 3/

Most states provide 26 weeks of regular benefits, and this crisis has gone on much longer than that, which means many workers are exhausting their regular state UI benefits. In the most recent data, continuing claims for regular state UI dropped by 538,000. 4/

For now, after an individual exhausts regular state benefits, they can move onto Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which is an additional 13 weeks of regular state UI. But PEUC expires in less than two months (more on that later). 5/

In the latest data available for PEUC, the week ending Oct 17, PEUC rose by “just” 278,000, offsetting only 46% of the 602,000 decline in continuing claims for regular state benefits for the same week. 6/

The small increase in PEUC relative to the decline in continuing claims for regular state UI is due in part to workers running into administrative glitches getting on to PEUC. 7/

Further, many of the roughly 2 million people who were on UI before the recession began, or who are in states w/ less than 26 weeks of regular state benefits, are already exhausting PEUC. Nearly a million (972,000) had exhausted PEUC by the end of Sept, & it will be more now. 8/

This chart shows continuing claims in all programs over time (the latest data for this are for Oct 17). Continuing claims are more than 20 million above where they were a year ago. (But use caution interpreting trends over time since March b/c of reporting issues.) 9/

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 fourteenth week of unemployment in this pandemic for which recipients did not receive the extra payment. 10/

And worse, w/o congressional action, PUA & PEUC will expire in less than 2 months. Millions of workers are depending on these programs (DOL reports 13.3 mil for the wk ending Oct 17). When they expire, millions of these workers & their families will be financially devastated. 11/

The House passed a $2.2 trillion relief package, but McConnell adjourned the Senate last week with no COVID relief—knowing full well that millions would see their benefits disappear during the winter holidays. The cruelty is mind-blowing. 12/

Aaaaaaand here is this thread in a blog post. n/ https://www.epi.org/blog/over-a-million-people-still-filed-initial-unemployment-claims-last-week-with-no-covid-19-relief-in-sight/