The number of jobless claims last week was 2.1 million, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.
Economists had predicted that between 2.1 million and 2.4 million jobless workers would claim unemployment benefits.
Including last week’s total, 41 million workers have claimed new unemployment benefits since mid-March.
Although the number of people being laid off each week has fallen significantly, from as many as 7 million at the end of March, the pace of job loss remains extreme by historical standards.
The number of jobless claims has overwhelmed state unemployment offices that administer the benefits. This week a year ago, a total of 218,000 workers across the country claimed jobless benefits. State totals now dwarf that number. In Florida alone, over 225,000 claims were made for the week ending May 16, 2020. California had over 244,000 claims for the same week.
One bright spot in Thursday’s report is that jobless claims have lowered in some states from prior weeks. In Georgia, there were over 65,000 fewer claims, and New Jersey has over 27,000 few claim from the week before.
As the number of coronavirus cases and deaths has declined, officials have increasingly focused on getting the tens of millions of unemployed workers back to their jobs.
The White House is considering spurring hiring by having the government add an extra reward for work. Larry Kudlow, the top economic adviser for the administration, said Tuesday that the White House is examining a proposal by Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio that would provide a $450-a-week bonus for individuals who return to work.
This amount would be in excess of the salaries or wages they receive and is meant to counter the $600 pandemic payment boost to unemployment benefits that has proven in some cases to be too lucrative, prompting some of the unemployed to not seek work.
More than 60% of jobless workers receiving the $600 payment collect more from unemployment benefits than they earned working, according to research by the American Action Forum, a right-leaning D.C. think tank, and the University of Chicago.
Further, the bottom 20% of wage earners are making, on average, double what they made in the workforce because of the $600 payment, according to Portman’s office.
The House approved a measure on May 15 that extends the $600 payment to Jan. 31, 2021, for most unemployed workers. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has stated that he opposes prolonging the payment.
Kudlow does not think the $600 payment will be extended in the next coronavirus relief package and instead believes that some other proposal will replace it.
“I frankly do not believe the $600 plus-up will survive the next round of talks, but I think we’ll have substitutes to deal with that issue,” he said.
