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Last week, 2.2 million workers applied for unemployment benefits. This is the thirteenth week in a row that unemployment claims have been more than twice the *worst* week of the Great Recession. That is three full months. 1/ https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
Of the 2.2 million workers who applied for unemployment benefits last week, 1.4 million applied for regular state unemployment insurance (not seasonally adjusted), and 0.8 million applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. 2/
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) is the federal program for workers who are not eligible for regular unemployment insurance (UI), like the self-employed. Note: at this point, only 42 states, DC, and Puerto Rico are reporting PUA claims. 3/
How is it that we are still seeing historic numbers of initial unemployment claims, when the May jobs reports shows we added jobs? The missing piece is hiring. If there are a lot of layoffs, you can still have job growth if there is also a lot of hiring (or rehiring). 4/
In today’s gradually-reopening coronavirus economy, hires (or rehires) are now outpacing job losses, but we are still seeing a huge number of people losing jobs. Labor market “churn” is vastly greater than in normal times. 5/
Note, we shouldn’t be looking at the cumulative number of initial regular state UI claims over the last 13 weeks as a measure of how many people are out of work because of the virus. It ignores PUA, but overstates things in other ways. 6/
Here’s what we should do instead (this will take a minute). A total of 18.7 mil workers had made it through at least the first round of regular state UI processing (known as “continued” claims) by June 6, and 3.0 mil have filed initial regular state UI claims on top of that. 7/
And another 9.3 million workers had made it through at least the first round of PUA processing by May 30, and 2.3 million have filed initial PUA claims on top of that. 8/
Yet another 1.3 million workers had made it through at least the first round of processing in “other” unemployment compensation programs (like Short-Time Compensation) by May 30, or had filed initial claims in other programs on top of that. 9/
Altogether, that’s 34.5 million workers who are either on unemployment benefits, have been approved and are waiting for benefits, or have applied very recently and are waiting to get approved. That is more than one in five workers. 10/
Here’s a chart that pulls this all together, including an epic note that provides all the details. 11/
Note that of the 34.5 million workers “on” unemployment benefits, a third are on PUA. This is a sobering reminder of how enormous the gaps are in our regular state unemployment insurance programs and how important it is that Congress established PUA. 12/
One note about UI and PUA claims: they *should* be completely non-overlapping—that is how DOL has directed state agencies to report them—but some states may be misreporting claims, so there may be some double counting. 13/
Things are improving slightly, but levels remain historic. This shows continuing claims in all programs (latest data are for May 30). Since the peak on May 9, continuing claims have declined slightly, but remain more than 27 million higher than they were before the virus. 14/
Today’s data highlight the deep recession we are now in. It’s important to remember that this recession is exacerbating existing racial inequalities by causing greater job loss in black households than white households. 15/
Policymakers must do much more. For example, without massive federal aid to state and local governments, 5.3 million workers in the public and private sector will lose their jobs by the end of 2021. 16/ https://www.epi.org/blog/without-federal-aid-to-state-and-local-governments-5-3-million-workers-will-likely-lose-their-jobs-by-the-end-of-2021-see-estimated-job-losses-by-state/
And we need to extend the across-the-board $600 increase in weekly unemployment benefits, which was probably the most effective part of the CARES Act. 17/ https://www.epi.org/blog/the-extra-600-in-unemployment-insurance-has-been-the-best-response-yet-to-the-economic-shock-of-the-coronavirus-and-should-be-extended/
And we can't turn off federal relief too early. Automatic triggers (where provisions phase out as the unemployment rate falls or the employment-to-population ratio rises) would alleviate the very real threat that we turn off federal aid too early, hamstringing the recovery. 18/
WHY DO I TRY TO COUNT. Above I say that only 42 states, DC, and Puerto Rico are reporting PUA claims. It’s actually *44* states, DC, and Puerto Rico. 19/ h/t @eliselgould
