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Another more than 1.0 million people applied for UI last week, including 709,000 people who applied for regular state UI and 298,000 who applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). PUA expires in just over six weeks. 1/ https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
The 1.0 million who applied for UI last week was a decrease of 112,000 from the prior week’s figures. 2/
Last week was the 34th 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 more than 3 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 436,000. 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 just over six weeks. 5/
In the latest data available for PEUC, the week ending Oct 24, PEUC rose by “just” 160,000, offsetting only about a quarter of the 598,000 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. More than a million workers have exhausted PEUC so far. 8/
In the latest data, more than half a million (552,000) workers were on Extended Benefits (EB) which is a program eligible unemployed workers can get on if they’ve exhausted both regular state benefits and PEUC. But workers are already beginning to exhaust EB, as well. 9/
This chart shows continuing claims in all programs over time (the latest data for this are for Oct 17). Continuing claims are nearly 20 million above where they were a year ago. (But use caution interpreting trends over time since March b/c of reporting issues.) 10
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 15th week of unemployment in this pandemic for which recipients did not receive the extra payment. 11/
And worse, w/o congressional action, PUA & PEUC will expire on Dec 26. Millions of workers are depending on these programs (DOL reports 13.6 mil for the wk ending Oct 24). When they expire, millions of these workers & their families will be financially devastated. 12/
The House passed a $2.2 trillion relief package, but McConnell has thus far blocked additional COVID relief—knowing full well that millions will see their benefits disappear on Dec 26th if he doesn’t act. The cruelty is mind-blowing. 13/
And blocking COVID relief is not just cruel, it’s terrible economics. For example, the spending made possible by the extra $600 in UI was supporting millions of jobs. Letting the $600 expire means cutting those jobs. 14/ 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/
There are now 25.7 million workers who are officially unemployed, otherwise out of work because of the virus, or have seen a drop in hours and pay because of the pandemic. And job growth is *slowing*. Stimulus is desperately needed. 15/ https://www.epi.org/blog/what-the-next-president-inherits-more-than-25-million-workers-are-being-hurt-by-the-coronavirus-downturn/
Blocking stimulus is also exacerbating racial inequality. Due to the impact of historic & current systemic racism, Black and Latinx workers have seen more job loss in this pandemic, and have less wealth to fall back on. The lack of stimulus hits these workers the hardest. 16/
And this is your regular reminder 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. 17/ https://www.epi.org/publication/health-insurance-and-the-covid-19-shock/ @joshbivens_DC @benzipperer
And here's this thread in the form of a blog post. n/ https://www.epi.org/blog/with-unemployment-benefits-for-millions-of-workers-set-to-expire-in-december-senate-republicans-must-stop-blocking-aid/
