The number of new applications for unemployment benefits last week was 1.2 million, the Labor Department reported Thursday, marking the 20th straight week that claims have been over 1 million. It is also the lowest number of new claims since the pandemic exploded in the United States in March.
Economists predicted that new claims would be 1.42 million.
The weekly totals for workers claiming jobless benefits have been extremely high since the pandemic hit the U.S. By comparison, weekly jobless claims pre-coronavirus were in the 200,000 range for the entire country. Now, California alone had more than 244,000 initial claims for the week ending July 25.
The persistently high number of claims suggests the jobs recovery is moving at a slow pace.
After jobless claims skyrocketed in March, with 6.9 million filing for benefits for the week ending March 28, the number of workers claiming unemployment benefits dropped precipitously through the end of May.
Since then, new jobless claims have hovered above 1 million, and ticked up in the prior two weeks. Jobless claims for the week ending July 18 were 1.43 million, and claims for the week prior were 1.42 million.
In addition to the number of jobless claims benefits, another 655,707 people filed new claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a special program to provide relief for people sidelined by the pandemic who normally wouldn’t be eligible for unemployment, such as independent contractors whose work dried up.
Nearly 13 million jobless workers received a PUA payment for the week ending July 18. The program expired last week, so those payments will no longer be sent out unless Congress agrees to extend it.
The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending July 18 was over 32 million, an increase of more than 1.3 million from the previous week.
For comparison, the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs last year was 1.7 million.
“This is hardly the time to check off the ‘mission accomplished’ box on healing the pandemic-ravaged economy,” said Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com.
Insured unemployment rates remain elevated in several states.
The highest insured unemployment rates for the week ending July 18 were in Nevada, 24.9%, Puerto Rico, 23.5%, Hawaii, 21%, California, 18.1%, and Louisiana, 17.2%.
Some states experiencing spikes in coronavirus infections are also seeing spikes in initial jobless claims.
