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US workers file 742,000 new jobless claims as COVID-19 surge continues

By
Noah Manskar
Published Nov. 19, 2020, 8:40 a.m. ET

Some 742,000 Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week as a surge in coronavirus infections threatened to shut down businesses again, the feds said Thursday.

The latest batch of initial jobless claims brought the seasonally adjusted total filed during the coronavirus pandemic to roughly 68.1 million — equivalent to more than 42 percent of the nation’s workforce.

The first increase in new filings in about a month came as some cities and states brought back lockdown measures to combat the record-setting resurgence of COVID-19. Last week’s total from the US Department of Labor came in well above economists’ expectations for 705,000 claims, according to Wrightson ICAP.

“While the development of effective vaccines has provided a glimmer of hope, Americans relying on jobless benefits still face tremendous darkness ahead unless Congress acts,” said Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and senior fellow at the Century Foundation.

Last week was the 35th consecutive week in which new jobless claims have remained above the pre-pandemic record of 695,000. Continuing claims, which measure ongoing unemployment on a one-week lag, dropped for the eighth consecutive week to about 6.3 million, finally falling below their Great Recession peak of roughly 6.6 million.

But experts say that decline at least partly has to do with jobless workers exhausting their standard 26 weeks of benefits and going onto a federal program providing 13 additional weeks. Nearly 4.4 million people were getting those extended benefits in the week ending Oct. 31, up from about 4.1 million the prior week, the feds said.

That Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program is due to expire at the end of the year, which could leave many workers teetering on a fiscal cliff while the pandemic rages.

“Spiking cases and expired benefits are ingredients for a vicious cycle where Americans are pushed back into the workforce when the virus is already widespread,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor. “The combined health and economic crises could echo some of the harsh impacts felt in the spring rather than the steady recovery seen over the summer.”