Things are NOT getting better …..
People are not going back to work in record numbers….
And Congress and Trump are dancing around extending additional unemployment benefits past July 31….
Oh, and the states that did NOT botton down for the virus month ago?
ARE seeing that it did NOT go away….
New unemployment claims continued to roll in last week at historically elevated levels, as American workers filed 1.5 million initial applications for aid, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.
On top of that, more than 760,000 people applied for benefits under the new temporary Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program created for those ineligible for traditional unemployment benefits like gig workers and the self-employed. While economists caution that there is likely overlap, added together, the number of new claims filed last week could be well over 2 million.
The number of workers still seeking unemployment more than three months into the pandemic has sparked doubt among many economists that the U.S. is on the road to a speedy recovery as President Donald Trump has proclaimed.
“The tens of millions that remain unemployed are an increasingly important signal of labor market weakness,” Glassdoor Senior Economist Daniel Zhao wrote in reaction to the report. “The labor market’s path to recovery is littered with obstacles that could smother the rebound, from the expiration of federal support for businesses and workers to depressed consumer demand to the resurgence in Covid-19 cases.”
California reported the largest number of claims last week, with 243,344 new applications filed. Georgia, one of the first states to reopen its economy in April, followed with 130,766 new claims.
The economic recession triggered by the pandemic has led to nearly 46 million new applications for unemployment aid in a little over three months. But that number likely includes duplicate applications, as some states have instructed workers to reapply if they were first found ineligible…..