Jobless Claims in U.S. Tops 1 Million in a Week, New Report Shows

Jobless claims in the United States of America have topped 1 million in one week as new data from the Department of Labor revealed. The 1,106,000 job losses filed for the week ended August 15th exceeded the number analysts polled by Dow Jones projected which was pegged at 923,000.

The daunting figure shows that the economy is far from healing from the economic down plunge of COVID-19 and the nationwide lockdown it brought. Following the first round of stimulus checks roll out, the nation’s lawmakers are not pacifying the situation as they are yet to pass a bill in support of the second round of the stimulus checks both for individuals as well as unemployed citizens.

With negotiations currently at a gridlock between the Democrat-controlled House and the Republican’s dominated Senate, citizens out of jobs have not received support for weeks. According to Glassdoor’s Senior Economist, Daniel Zhao:

“It’s been four weeks without the $600/week CARES Act benefits for tens of millions of unemployed Americans, While a handful of states are approved to disburse the new $300/week benefits, it remains unclear how quickly the benefits will be able to flow to unemployed Americans already facing an unsteady recovery.”

The delays have been in the disparity between the Democrats and the Republicans on the specific benefits to roll out. While Democratic lawmakers want to keep an additional unemployment benefit of $600 per week that was included in the previous aid package, Republicans have said that they intend to extend the additional benefit at a lower rate.

Trailing Current and Past Jobless Claims Data

The data for the most jobless claims in the United States came at its peak back in March and April, the period marked by complete COVID-19 lockdowns. While a record 3.3 million Americans filed initial jobless claims for the week ended March 21. Economists that were polled by Dow Jones expect another 2.65 million people to join the figure, an estimate that was surpassed.

The succeeding weeks in April was no way better for millions of Americans as the seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 11 was 15,976,000, climbing by 4,064,000 from the previous week’s revised level to hit its all-time high. Meanwhile, the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate landed at 11% for the same week, marking a growth of 2.8 percentage points from the week prior. Though these unemployment rates got improved in the succeeding period as the lockdowns were lifted, a return to its pre-COVID-19 level has been almost an impossible dream.

This August, the continued claims for unemployment insurance, the lowest since the first quarter lows while the initial claims for the week ended August 15 as noted was pegged at 1.1 million. Different states also saw different data figures as outlined by the Department of Labor, Nevada, Puerto Rico and Kansas saw the biggest initial claims increases in the week ending Aug. 8. Jobless claims in Puerto Rico rose by 3,601, the ones in Nevada increased by 4,028, while Kansas saw a spike of 2,248.

As American patiently await the entire phasing out of this coronavirus induced job loss nightmare, the timely delivery of the stalling stimulus check will aid many get by in the long term.