Read on Twitter
Another 1.1 million people applied for unemployment insurance (UI) last week. That includes 787,000 people who applied for regular state UI and 345,000 who applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. 1/ https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
The 1.1 million who applied for UI last week was a decrease of 47,000 from the prior week’s revised figures. (Revisions to prior weeks were substantial due to California having completed its pause in the processing of initial claim and resuming reporting claims data.) 2/
Last week was the 31st 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 well over three times their pre-recession levels. 3/
Most states provide six months of regular benefits, and October marks the eighth month of this crisis. That means many workers are exhausting their regular state UI benefits. In the most recent data, continuing claims for regular state UI dropped by more than a million. 4/
Fortunately, 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 (and is only available to people who exhaust regular state UI). 5/
However, in the latest data available for PEUC, (the week ending Oct 3,) PEUC rose by “just” 510,000, offsetting only 41.8% of the of the 1.2 million 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 likely due in part to admin glitches getting on to PEUC, including workers not being told either about PEUC or that they have to apply for it (states are supposed to notify them).7/
Available data reported by DOL indicate that right now, a total of 24.0 million workers are either receiving unemployment benefits or have applied recently and are waiting to get approved. 8/
But major caution here.The above chart is an overestimate. For one thing, initial claims for regular state UI & PUA should be nonoverlapping—that is how DOL wants agencies to report them—but some folks may be erroneously counted as being in both programs. 9/
An even bigger issue is that states are including retroactive payments in their continuing PUA claims, which would also lead to double counting. 10/
That means nobody knows exactly how many people are receiving unemployment insurance benefits right now— another reminder that we need to invest heavily in UI infrastructure and technology. 11/
This chart shows continuing claims in all programs over time (the latest data for this are for Oct 3). Continuing claims are nearly 22 million above where they were a year ago. (But use caution interpreting trends over time since March b/c of reporting issues.) 12/
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 twelfth week of unemployment in this pandemic for which recipients did not receive the extra payment. 13/
And w/o congressional action, PUA and PEUC will also expire at the end of the year. Millions of workers are depending on these programs (DOL reports 13.5 mil for the wk ending Oct 3). When they expire, millions of these workers & their families will be financially devastated. 14/
But there is little hope for another stimulus bill before next year. The House passed a $2.2 trillion relief package, but McConnell told Republican senators on Tuesday that he has advised the White House not to strike a deal with Pelosi prior to the election. 15/
Blocking more stimulus 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. 16/ 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 more than 12 million jobs below where it would be if the recession hadn’t happened, and job growth is slowing. Senate Republicans should be embracing, not blocking stimulus. 17/ https://www.epi.org/press/slowdown-in-jobs-added-means-we-could-be-years-away-from-a-full-recovery/
Blocking more stimulus also means no aid to state & local governments, no additional housing & nutrition assistance, no COVID-related health & safety measures for workers, no aid to the Postal Service, no additional support for hospitals and other health providers, etc. 18/
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. 19/
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. 20/ https://www.epi.org/publication/health-insurance-and-the-covid-19-shock/ @joshbivens_DC @benzipperer
You knew this was coming—here's this tweet thread in blog post form. n/ https://www.epi.org/blog/with-millions-of-people-out-of-work-the-senates-inaction-is-not-only-cruel-its-bad-economics/
