The next coronavirus relief package should provide aid to state and local governments, protect employed and unemployed workers, and invest in our democracy

Posted April 27, 2020 at 3:37 pm by Celine McNicholas, Josh Bivens, and Heidi Shierholz

The next coronavirus relief package should provide aid to state and local governments, protect employed and unemployed workers, and invest in our democracy

Key takeaways:

Congress has passed a series of bills to mitigate the harm of the coronavirus. However, they haven’t been enough to help working people. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, without additional relief, the unemployment rate will average 16% in the third quarter of 2020 and 10.1% in 2021.
The next recovery and relief bill should include $500 billion in aid to state and local governments, make additional investments in unemployment compensation, protect workers’ paychecks, include worker protections, invest in our democracy, and more.

In response to the coronavirus, Congress has passed a series of bills allocating more than $2 trillion to relief and recovery programs. However, these measures have been insufficient in scope and magnitude to address the severity of the economic and public health crisis we are experiencing. Further, lawmakers have failed to include key provisions that would address the needs of working families in this crisis. As a result of these policy missteps, the relief and recovery measures have not done nearly enough to mitigate the level of pain working people are experiencing or to ensure that the economy can get back on track after the shutdown period is over. It is critical that Congress correct its failures in future relief packages. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that without additional relief, the unemployment rate will average 16% in the third quarter of this year. As a point of comparison, the highest the unemployment rate reached in the Great Recession was 10%, and it reached that level for only one month. CBO projects that without additional relief, the unemployment rate will average 10.1% for the entire calendar year 2021.

Posted April 23, 2020 at 4:15 pm by Daniel Costa

Trump executive order to suspend immigration would reduce green cards by nearly one-third if extended for a full year

President Trump’s April 22 executive order to “suspend immigration” has the potential to reduce the number of migrants who can obtain green cards, i.e., become lawful permanent residents (LPRs), by hundreds of thousands if it remains in place for a substantial period of time beyond its initial 60-day duration.

Table 1 lists the categories of green cards that are affected by Trump’s executive order, along with the number of green cards that were issued in 2019 in each of those categories to applicants who were “new arrivals,” meaning they applied for their green cards from abroad. (The executive order does not suspend green cards for applicants who already reside in the United States.)

As Table 1 shows, there were one million total green cards issued during all of 2019, and 316,000 green cards issued under the categories suspended by Trump’s new executive order. The executive order is initially valid for 60 days (two months); a 60-day suspension of these categories would result in an estimated reduction of 52,600 green cards, or a reduction of 5.1% of all green cards relative to the total number issued in 2019.

However, it is impossible to know whether the executive order will remain in place for just two months, multiple years, or somewhere in between. Each additional 60 days would reduce the number by an additional 52,600, or an additional 5.1% of the annual green card total. If the executive order remains in force for one full year, it would result in a reduction of 316,000 green cards, or 31%, nearly one-third, of the one million green cards issued in 2019.

Table 1

Green cards would fall by 31% under Trump’s executive order: Number of people applying from abroad who became U.S. lawful permanent residents in 2019 in the categories suspended by Trump’s April 2020 executive order

Immigrant class of admission, new arrivals only	Number in 2019
Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens
Parents	66,782
Family-sponsored preferences
First: Unmarried sons/daughters of U.S. citizens and their children	20,866
Second: Spouses, children, and unmarried sons/daughters of alien residents; children of spouses of alien residents	85,089
Third: Married sons/daughters of U.S. citizens and their spouses and children	22,874
Fourth: Brothers/sisters of U.S. citizens (at least 21 years of age) and their spouses and children	56,083
Employment-based preferences
First: Priority workers, and their spouses and children	2,238
Second: Professionals with advanced degrees or aliens of exceptional ability, and their spouses and children	3,432
Third: Skilled workers, professionals, and unskilled workers, and their spouses and children	13,522
Fourth: Certain special immigrants, and their spouses and children	2,080
Diversity Immigrant Visa program	42,437
Children born abroad to alien residents	59
Other	356
Total in suspended categories	315,818
Total green cards issued, all categories	1,030,990
Suspended categories as a percentage of total green cards	31%

Notes: New arrivals represents applicants for lawful permanent resident status who are residing outside of the United States, usually in the country of origin. “Other” category primarily consists of those admitted under special legislation.

Source: Author’s analysis of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Legal Immigration and Adjustment of Status Report Fiscal Year 2019, Quarter 4, Table 1B.

Posted April 23, 2020 at 4:06 pm by Jori Kandra and Julia Wolfe

New state unemployment numbers show workers continue to file unemployment claims in daunting numbers

Correction: This blog post was updated on 4/24/20 with the correct data in Figure A and Table 1. The figure and table initially had the wrong data for the percent change from the previous week. We regret the error.

The Department of Labor released the most recent unemployment insurance (UI) claims data this morning, which shows that another 4.3 million people filed for UI benefits last week (not seasonally adjusted). More people filed for UI in the last week alone than during the worst five-week stretch of the Great Recession. In the past five weeks, more than 24 million workers have applied for UI benefits across the country.

Last week, Connecticut (102,757), Florida (505,137), and West Virginia (46,251) experienced their highest level of initial UI claims filings ever, each seeing the number of claims approximately triple over the week. Last week, Florida saw the largest percent increase in claims (9,869%) relative to the pre-virus period of any state. Florida residents also filed the second most UI claims last week, followed by Texas and Georgia.

Figure A compares UI claims filed last week with filings in the pre-virus period, showing that all states, especially many in the South, continue to struggle. Eight of the 10 states that had the highest percent change in initial UI claims relative to the pre-virus period are in the South: Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia.

Figure A

Initial unemployment insurance claims filed during the week ending April 18, by state

State	Initial claims filed	Percent change from the prior week	Level change from the prior week	Percent change from pre-virus period	Level change from pre-virus period	Sum of initial claims for the six weeks ending April 18
Alabama	65,431	-14.3%	-11,083	3,004%	63,323	344,381
Alaska	13,027	1.6%	194	1,443%	12,183	61,539
Arizona	71,843	-26.5%	-26,074	2,088%	68,560	425,548
Arkansas	24,236	-28.7%	-10,225	1,538%	22,757	161,532
California	533,568	-19.4%	-127,112	1,205%	492,696	3,404,910
Colorado	68,667	-35.3%	-36,933	3,506%	66,763	302,470
Connecticut	102,757	201.9%	68,758	3,881%	100,176	232,089
Delaware	9,294	-28.8%	-3,812	1,528%	8,723	71,940
Washington D.C.	8,591	-13.4%	-1,335	1,790%	8,137	65,486
Florida	505,137	180.8%	326,251	9,869%	500,070	1,166,234
Georgia	243,677	-22.7%	-72,578	4,452%	238,324	1,108,121
Hawaii	26,477	-23.4%	-8,126	2,231%	25,341	173,409
Idaho	12,456	-29.7%	-5,508	1,031%	11,355	110,016
Illinois	102,736	-27.1%	-38,224	994%	93,345	748,542
Indiana	75,483	-36.0%	-40,999	2,909%	72,975	515,046
Iowa	27,912	-38.7%	-16,988	1,097%	25,579	234,131
Kansas	31,920	2.4%	723	1,879%	30,307	189,423
Kentucky	103,548	-10.6%	-12,296	4,039%	101,046	502,790
Louisiana	92,039	15.4%	12,270	5,359%	90,353	444,290
Maine	11,446	-12.7%	-1,719	1,375%	10,670	102,030
Maryland	46,676	-22.9%	-14,409	1,591%	43,916	353,050
Massachusetts	80,345	-22.0%	-22,844	1,226%	74,287	661,753
Michigan	134,119	-38.5%	-85,500	2,328%	128,595	1,185,147
Minnesota	74,873	-19.7%	-18,304	2,027%	71,354	507,100
Mississippi	35,843	-19.3%	-8,835	4,230%	35,015	167,194
Missouri	52,678	-41.6%	-42,524	1,634%	49,640	403,739
Montana	10,509	-21.7%	-3,099	1,245%	9,728	83,624
Nebraska	12,340	-24.9%	-4,057	2,328%	11,832	96,775
Nevada	40,909	-32.6%	-19,145	1,673%	38,602	348,018
New Hampshire	19,110	-19.2%	-4,859	3,287%	18,546	146,288
New Jersey	139,277	-0.9%	-1,281	1,603%	131,098	827,930
New Mexico	13,338	-28.5%	-5,422	1,783%	12,630	105,619
New York	204,716	-48.0%	-189,517	1,011%	186,286	1,405,202
North Carolina	104,515	-24.2%	-33,889	3,964%	101,943	653,604
North Dakota	9,042	-15.1%	-1,437	2,055%	8,623	50,587
Ohio	108,801	-31.1%	-49,487	1,390%	101,501	972,981
Oklahoma	40,297	-14.3%	-7,785	2,513%	38,755	233,217
Oregon	35,101	-31.8%	-17,372	784%	31,129	236,399
Pennsylvania	198,081	-17.1%	-40,274	1,469%	185,460	1,504,669
Rhode Island	17,578	-22.4%	-5,031	1,466%	16,455	132,985
South Carolina	73,116	-16.6%	-14,785	3,660%	71,172	350,476
South Dakota	5,128	-16.7%	-1,064	2,714%	4,946	28,544
Tennessee	68,968	-6.5%	-4,661	3,331%	66,958	384,578
Texas	280,406	2.4%	6,504	2,062%	267,435	1,317,972
Utah	19,751	-19.8%	-4,866	1,873%	18,750	126,731
Vermont	6,434	-31.7%	-3,064	945%	5,819	51,810
Virginia	84,387	-20.9%	-21,890	3,095%	81,746	496,197
Washington	89,105	-42.2%	-60,980	1,368%	83,035	726,180
West Virginia	46,251	212.9%	31,811	3,993%	45,121	95,117
Wisconsin	55,886	-20.2%	-14,117	888%	50,232	397,861
Wyoming	3,321	-24.4%	-1,413	567%	2,823	27,284

Notes: Initial claims for the week ending April 18 reflect advance state claims, not seasonally adjusted. For comparisons with the “pre-virus period,” we use a four-week average of initial claims for the weeks ending February 15–March 7, 2020.

Source: U.S. Employment and Training Administration, Initial Claims [ICSA], retrieved from Department of Labor (DOL), https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf and https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims.asp, April 23, 2020

Posted April 23, 2020 at 9:10 am by Heidi Shierholz

In the last five weeks, more than 24 million workers applied for unemployment insurance benefits

In the last five weeks, the number of workers applying for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits has skyrocketed to well over 20 times what it was in the pre-coronavirus period, and over five times the worst five-week stretch of the Great Recession. For comparison, in the period before the coronavirus hit, just over a million workers would apply for UI in a typical five-week span, and in the worst five-week stretch of the Great Recession, it was less than four million. In the last five weeks, it was more than 24 million. That means more than one in seven workers applied for UI. (It should be noted that using seasonally adjusted numbers, the Department of Labor [DOL] reports that 26.5 million workers applied for UI during the last five weeks, and using unadjusted numbers, they report that 24.4 million workers applied for benefits. I focus on the unadjusted numbers because, while seasonal adjustments are typically helpful—they are used to even out seasonal changes in claims that have nothing to do with the underlying strength or weakness of the labor market—the way DOL does seasonal adjustments is somewhat distortionary at a time like this).

Figure A

Weekly initial unemployment insurance claims: Not seasonally adjusted, 1967–present

Week ending	Initial claims
1967-01-07	346,000
1967-01-14	334,000
1967-01-21	277,000
1967-01-28	252,000
1967-02-04	274,000
1967-02-11	276,000
1967-02-18	247,000
1967-02-25	248,000
1967-03-04	326,000
1967-03-11	240,000
1967-03-18	225,000
1967-03-25	215,000
1967-04-01	223,000
1967-04-08	251,000
1967-04-15	289,000
1967-04-22	218,000
1967-04-29	216,000
1967-05-06	221,000
1967-05-13	188,000
1967-05-20	177,000
1967-05-27	170,000
1967-06-03	175,000
1967-06-10	188,000
1967-06-17	176,000
1967-06-24	178,000
1967-07-01	206,000
1967-07-08	322,000
1967-07-15	309,000
1967-07-22	282,000
1967-07-29	243,000
1967-08-05	250,000
1967-08-12	193,000
1967-08-19	174,000
1967-08-26	160,000
1967-09-02	163,000
1967-09-09	156,000
1967-09-16	165,000
1967-09-23	155,000
1967-09-30	154,000
1967-10-07	195,000
1967-10-14	159,000
1967-10-21	181,000
1967-10-28	174,000
1967-11-04	204,000
1967-11-11	201,000
1967-11-18	209,000
1967-11-25	200,000
1967-12-02	228,000
1967-12-09	258,000
1967-12-16	241,000
1967-12-23	289,000
1967-12-30	332,000
1968-01-06	357,000
1968-01-13	373,000
1968-01-20	293,000
1968-01-27	242,000
1968-02-03	308,000
1968-02-10	257,000
1968-02-17	214,000
1968-02-24	199,000
1968-03-02	198,000
1968-03-09	208,000
1968-03-16	179,000
1968-03-23	175,000
1968-03-30	165,000
1968-04-06	184,000
1968-04-13	167,000
1968-04-20	165,000
1968-04-27	216,000
1968-05-04	180,000
1968-05-11	164,000
1968-05-18	156,000
1968-05-25	148,000
1968-06-01	139,000
1968-06-08	149,000
1968-06-15	154,000
1968-06-22	152,000
1968-06-29	173,000
1968-07-06	266,000
1968-07-13	242,000
1968-07-20	216,000
1968-07-27	238,000
1968-08-03	235,000
1968-08-10	222,000
1968-08-17	160,000
1968-08-24	148,000
1968-08-31	139,000
1968-09-07	135,000
1968-09-14	141,000
1968-09-21	142,000
1968-09-28	143,000
1968-10-05	153,000
1968-10-12	151,000
1968-10-19	151,000
1968-10-26	152,000
1968-11-02	161,000
1968-11-09	174,000
1968-11-16	196,000
1968-11-23	211,000
1968-11-30	180,000
1968-12-07	223,000
1968-12-14	233,000
1968-12-21	243,000
1968-12-28	333,000
1969-01-04	290,000
1969-01-11	337,000
1969-01-18	265,000
1969-01-25	236,000
1969-02-01	250,000
1969-02-08	248,000
1969-02-15	219,000
1969-02-22	199,000
1969-03-01	206,000
1969-03-08	195,000
1969-03-15	179,000
1969-03-22	158,000
1969-03-29	157,000
1969-04-05	170,000
1969-04-12	187,000
1969-04-19	168,000
1969-04-26	151,000
1969-05-03	150,000
1969-05-10	157,000
1969-05-17	141,000
1969-05-24	138,000
1969-05-31	135,000
1969-06-07	148,000
1969-06-14	145,000
1969-06-21	155,000
1969-06-28	177,000
1969-07-05	267,000
1969-07-12	271,000
1969-07-19	246,000
1969-07-26	221,000
1969-08-02	223,000
1969-08-09	210,000
1969-08-16	168,000
1969-08-23	154,000
1969-08-30	144,000
1969-09-06	133,000
1969-09-13	149,000
1969-09-20	147,000
1969-09-27	147,000
1969-10-04	159,000
1969-10-11	168,000
1969-10-18	155,000
1969-10-25	171,000
1969-11-01	174,000
1969-11-08	206,000
1969-11-15	196,000
1969-11-22	230,000
1969-11-29	219,000
1969-12-06	247,000
1969-12-13	264,000
1969-12-20	289,000
1969-12-27	320,000
1970-01-03	344,000
1970-01-10	429,000
1970-01-17	386,000
1970-01-24	316,000
1970-01-31	293,000
1970-02-07	324,000
1970-02-14	308,000
1970-02-21	285,000
1970-02-28	241,000
1970-03-07	270,000
1970-03-14	258,000
1970-03-21	233,000
1970-03-28	236,000
1970-04-04	250,000
1970-04-11	300,000
1970-04-18	339,000
1970-04-25	299,000
1970-05-02	278,000
1970-05-09	279,000
1970-05-16	242,000
1970-05-23	231,000
1970-05-30	224,000
1970-06-06	234,000
1970-06-13	242,000
1970-06-20	245,000
1970-06-27	247,000
1970-07-04	309,000
1970-07-11	369,000
1970-07-18	353,000
1970-07-25	329,000
1970-08-01	293,000
1970-08-08	278,000
1970-08-15	257,000
1970-08-22	238,000
1970-08-29	220,000
1970-09-05	240,000
1970-09-12	207,000
1970-09-19	247,000
1970-09-26	256,000
1970-10-03	284,000
1970-10-10	287,000
1970-10-17	259,000
1970-10-24	280,000
1970-10-31	283,000
1970-11-07	333,000
1970-11-14	307,000
1970-11-21	333,000
1970-11-28	354,000
1970-12-05	378,000
1970-12-12	370,000
1970-12-19	354,000
1970-12-26	451,000
1971-01-02	443,000
1971-01-09	500,000
1971-01-16	452,000
1971-01-23	399,000
1971-01-30	353,000
1971-02-06	375,000
1971-02-13	333,000
1971-02-20	286,000
1971-02-27	289,000
1971-03-06	306,000
1971-03-13	275,000
1971-03-20	260,000
1971-03-27	261,000
1971-04-03	267,000
1971-04-10	278,000
1971-04-17	257,000
1971-04-24	248,000
1971-05-01	237,000
1971-05-08	260,000
1971-05-15	230,000
1971-05-22	231,000
1971-05-29	231,000
1971-06-05	232,000
1971-06-12	244,000
1971-06-19	249,000
1971-06-26	247,000
1971-07-03	288,000
1971-07-10	335,000
1971-07-17	367,000
1971-07-24	342,000
1971-07-31	340,000
1971-08-07	362,000
1971-08-14	282,000
1971-08-21	252,000
1971-08-28	228,000
1971-09-04	268,000
1971-09-11	219,000
1971-09-18	230,000
1971-09-25	236,000
1971-10-02	238,000
1971-10-09	280,000
1971-10-16	233,000
1971-10-23	251,000
1971-10-30	241,000
1971-11-06	297,000
1971-11-13	289,000
1971-11-20	291,000
1971-11-27	284,000
1971-12-04	372,000
1971-12-11	348,000
1971-12-18	329,000
1971-12-25	340,000
1972-01-01	405,000
1972-01-08	479,000
1972-01-15	395,000
1972-01-22	347,000
1972-01-29	326,000
1972-02-05	342,000
1972-02-12	318,000
1972-02-19	279,000
1972-02-26	252,000
1972-03-04	263,000
1972-03-11	257,000
1972-03-18	241,000
1972-03-25	231,000
1972-04-01	224,000
1972-04-08	271,000
1972-04-15	237,000
1972-04-22	223,000
1972-04-29	214,000
1972-05-06	234,000
1972-05-13	218,000
1972-05-20	210,000
1972-05-27	209,000
1972-06-03	198,000
1972-06-10	224,000
1972-06-17	227,000
1972-06-24	240,000
1972-07-01	327,000
1972-07-08	364,000
1972-07-15	367,000
1972-07-22	299,000
1972-07-29	266,000
1972-08-05	256,000
1972-08-12	220,000
1972-08-19	203,000
1972-08-26	195,000
1972-09-02	192,000
1972-09-09	178,000
1972-09-16	196,000
1972-09-23	193,000
1972-09-30	192,000
1972-10-07	233,000
1972-10-14	202,000
1972-10-21	214,000
1972-10-28	196,000
1972-11-04	242,000
1972-11-11	236,000
1972-11-18	280,000
1972-11-25	238,000
1972-12-02	268,000
1972-12-09	317,000
1972-12-16	323,000
1972-12-23	327,000
1972-12-30	338,000
1973-01-06	345,000
1973-01-13	412,000
1973-01-20	324,000
1973-01-27	267,000
1973-02-03	285,000
1973-02-10	276,000
1973-02-17	242,000
1973-02-24	220,000
1973-03-03	233,000
1973-03-10	227,000
1973-03-17	212,000
1973-03-24	209,000
1973-03-31	193,000
1973-04-07	244,000
1973-04-14	212,000
1973-04-21	211,000
1973-04-28	194,000
1973-05-05	214,000
1973-05-12	198,000
1973-05-19	189,000
1973-05-26	190,000
1973-06-02	173,000
1973-06-09	210,000
1973-06-16	198,000
1973-06-23	206,000
1973-06-30	215,000
1973-07-07	309,000
1973-07-14	270,000
1973-07-21	259,000
1973-07-28	265,000
1973-08-04	262,000
1973-08-11	238,000
1973-08-18	207,000
1973-08-25	190,000
1973-09-01	180,000
1973-09-08	177,000
1973-09-15	186,000
1973-09-22	187,000
1973-09-29	191,000
1973-10-06	210,000
1973-10-13	207,000
1973-10-20	208,000
1973-10-27	200,000
1973-11-03	230,000
1973-11-10	277,000
1973-11-17	261,000
1973-11-24	237,000
1973-12-01	299,000
1973-12-08	345,000
1973-12-15	340,000
1973-12-22	429,000
1973-12-29	461,000
1974-01-05	405,000
1974-01-12	584,000
1974-01-19	465,000
1974-01-26	373,000
1974-02-02	381,000
1974-02-09	459,000
1974-02-16	352,000
1974-02-23	296,000
1974-03-02	313,000
1974-03-09	310,000
1974-03-16	293,000
1974-03-23	285,000
1974-03-30	279,000
1974-04-06	288,000
1974-04-13	278,000
1974-04-20	256,000
1974-04-27	235,000
1974-05-04	243,000
1974-05-11	249,000
1974-05-18	238,000
1974-05-25	246,000
1974-06-01	209,000
1974-06-08	267,000
1974-06-15	255,000
1974-06-22	266,000
1974-06-29	285,000
1974-07-06	350,000
1974-07-13	351,000
1974-07-20	325,000
1974-07-27	333,000
1974-08-03	340,000
1974-08-10	318,000
1974-08-17	269,000
1974-08-24	260,000
1974-08-31	259,000
1974-09-07	253,000
1974-09-14	271,000
1974-09-21	283,000
1974-09-28	279,000
1974-10-05	325,000
1974-10-12	358,000
1974-10-19	324,000
1974-10-26	357,000
1974-11-02	375,000
1974-11-09	435,000
1974-11-16	450,000
1974-11-23	532,000
1974-11-30	524,000
1974-12-07	693,000
1974-12-14	637,000
1974-12-21	677,000
1974-12-28	813,000
1975-01-04	681,000
1975-01-11	969,000
1975-01-18	850,000
1975-01-25	729,000
1975-02-01	699,000
1975-02-08	691,000
1975-02-15	608,000
1975-02-22	567,000
1975-03-01	568,000
1975-03-08	569,000
1975-03-15	494,000
1975-03-22	499,000
1975-03-29	477,000
1975-04-05	505,000
1975-04-12	496,000
1975-04-19	456,000
1975-04-26	429,000
1975-05-03	420,000
1975-05-10	432,000
1975-05-17	410,000
1975-05-24	391,000
1975-05-31	360,000
1975-06-07	443,000
1975-06-14	422,000
1975-06-21	428,000
1975-06-28	407,000
1975-07-05	460,000
1975-07-12	517,000
1975-07-19	481,000
1975-07-26	471,000
1975-08-02	462,000
1975-08-09	429,000
1975-08-16	367,000
1975-08-23	353,000
1975-08-30	332,000
1975-09-06	331,000
1975-09-13	341,000
1975-09-20	336,000
1975-09-27	342,000
1975-10-04	365,000
1975-10-11	385,000
1975-10-18	332,000
1975-10-25	372,000
1975-11-01	378,000
1975-11-08	414,000
1975-11-15	371,000
1975-11-22	419,000
1975-11-29	403,000
1975-12-06	487,000
1975-12-13	456,000
1975-12-20	463,000
1975-12-27	573,000
1976-01-03	540,000
1976-01-10	708,000
1976-01-17	563,000
1976-01-24	486,000
1976-01-31	450,000
1976-02-07	452,000
1976-02-14	391,000
1976-02-21	367,000
1976-02-28	353,000
1976-03-06	366,000
1976-03-13	343,000
1976-03-20	330,000
1976-03-27	314,000
1976-04-03	334,000
1976-04-10	366,000
1976-04-17	316,000
1976-04-24	311,000
1976-05-01	313,000
1976-05-08	345,000
1976-05-15	308,000
1976-05-22	311,000
1976-05-29	310,000
1976-06-05	307,000
1976-06-12	351,000
1976-06-19	342,000
1976-06-26	339,000
1976-07-03	401,000
1976-07-10	445,000
1976-07-17	455,000
1976-07-24	418,000
1976-07-31	401,000
1976-08-07	373,000
1976-08-14	329,000
1976-08-21	320,000
1976-08-28	301,000
1976-09-04	321,000
1976-09-11	280,000
1976-09-18	320,000
1976-09-25	327,000
1976-10-02	332,000
1976-10-09	388,000
1976-10-16	325,000
1976-10-23	361,000
1976-10-30	370,000
1976-11-06	387,000
1976-11-13	363,000
1976-11-20	430,000
1976-11-27	369,000
1976-12-04	500,000
1976-12-11	494,000
1976-12-18	434,000
1976-12-25	466,000
1977-01-01	558,000
1977-01-08	685,000
1977-01-15	597,000
1977-01-22	589,000
1977-01-29	518,000
1977-02-05	704,000
1977-02-12	552,000
1977-02-19	422,000
1977-02-26	360,000
1977-03-05	367,000
1977-03-12	335,000
1977-03-19	321,000
1977-03-26	298,000
1977-04-02	296,000
1977-04-09	367,000
1977-04-16	316,000
1977-04-23	314,000
1977-04-30	305,000
1977-05-07	333,000
1977-05-14	309,000
1977-05-21	293,000
1977-05-28	298,000
1977-06-04	283,000
1977-06-11	308,000
1977-06-18	310,000
1977-06-25	321,000
1977-07-02	348,000
1977-07-09	431,000
1977-07-16	424,000
1977-07-23	391,000
1977-07-30	380,000
1977-08-06	379,000
1977-08-13	319,000
1977-08-20	298,000
1977-08-27	282,000
1977-09-03	289,000
1977-09-10	260,000
1977-09-17	289,000
1977-09-24	293,000
1977-10-01	275,000
1977-10-08	345,000
1977-10-15	287,000
1977-10-22	322,000
1977-10-29	309,000
1977-11-05	352,000
1977-11-12	310,000
1977-11-19	367,000
1977-11-26	342,000
1977-12-03	430,000
1977-12-10	448,000
1977-12-17	412,000
1977-12-24	450,000
1977-12-31	535,000
1978-01-07	559,000
1978-01-14	579,000
1978-01-21	500,000
1978-01-28	445,000
1978-02-04	447,000
1978-02-11	438,000
1978-02-18	455,000
1978-02-25	372,000
1978-03-04	360,000
1978-03-11	342,000
1978-03-18	302,000
1978-03-25	280,000
1978-04-01	278,000
1978-04-08	338,000
1978-04-15	279,000
1978-04-22	277,000
1978-04-29	269,000
1978-05-06	291,000
1978-05-13	268,000
1978-05-20	266,000
1978-05-27	256,000
1978-06-03	242,000
1978-06-10	292,000
1978-06-17	287,000
1978-06-24	297,000
1978-07-01	347,000
1978-07-08	428,000
1978-07-15	421,000
1978-07-22	387,000
1978-07-29	371,000
1978-08-05	376,000
1978-08-12	326,000
1978-08-19	287,000
1978-08-26	264,000
1978-09-02	249,000
1978-09-09	246,000
1978-09-16	262,000
1978-09-23	254,000
1978-09-30	249,000
1978-10-07	323,000
1978-10-14	262,000
1978-10-21	287,000
1978-10-28	280,000
1978-11-04	302,000
1978-11-11	286,000
1978-11-18	345,000
1978-11-25	350,000
1978-12-02	427,000
1978-12-09	427,000
1978-12-16	390,000
1978-12-23	447,000
1978-12-30	515,000
1979-01-06	559,000
1979-01-13	680,000
1979-01-20	488,000
1979-01-27	423,000
1979-02-03	424,000
1979-02-10	418,000
1979-02-17	384,000
1979-02-24	364,000
1979-03-03	358,000
1979-03-10	346,000
1979-03-17	315,000
1979-03-24	296,000
1979-03-31	300,000
1979-04-07	449,000
1979-04-14	424,000
1979-04-21	340,000
1979-04-28	303,000
1979-05-05	307,000
1979-05-12	290,000
1979-05-19	280,000
1979-05-26	287,000
1979-06-02	262,000
1979-06-09	322,000
1979-06-16	312,000
1979-06-23	343,000
1979-06-30	366,000
1979-07-07	458,000
1979-07-14	446,000
1979-07-21	445,000
1979-07-28	417,000
1979-08-04	428,000
1979-08-11	360,000
1979-08-18	329,000
1979-08-25	313,000
1979-09-01	312,000
1979-09-08	285,000
1979-09-15	311,000
1979-09-22	309,000
1979-09-29	303,000
1979-10-06	379,000
1979-10-13	335,000
1979-10-20	342,000
1979-10-27	353,000
1979-11-03	372,000
1979-11-10	392,000
1979-11-17	401,000
1979-11-24	379,000
1979-12-01	513,000
1979-12-08	521,000
1979-12-15	455,000
1979-12-22	580,000
1979-12-29	596,000
1980-01-05	574,000
1980-01-12	804,000
1980-01-19	648,000
1980-01-26	515,000
1980-02-02	471,000
1980-02-09	493,000
1980-02-16	418,000
1980-02-23	415,000
1980-03-01	407,000
1980-03-08	413,000
1980-03-15	398,000
1980-03-22	392,000
1980-03-29	399,000
1980-04-05	451,000
1980-04-12	535,000
1980-04-19	495,000
1980-04-26	482,000
1980-05-03	491,000
1980-05-10	526,000
1980-05-17	539,000
1980-05-24	525,000
1980-05-31	477,000
1980-06-07	562,000
1980-06-14	511,000
1980-06-21	529,000
1980-06-28	563,000
1980-07-05	584,000
1980-07-12	643,000
1980-07-19	628,000
1980-07-26	569,000
1980-08-02	536,000
1980-08-09	494,000
1980-08-16	435,000
1980-08-23	410,000
1980-08-30	397,000
1980-09-06	374,000
1980-09-13	414,000
1980-09-20	381,000
1980-09-27	363,000
1980-10-04	410,000
1980-10-11	417,000
1980-10-18	355,000
1980-10-25	384,000
1980-11-01	395,000
1980-11-08	416,000
1980-11-15	403,000
1980-11-22	440,000
1980-11-29	407,000
1980-12-06	534,000
1980-12-13	481,000
1980-12-20	499,000
1980-12-27	546,000
1981-01-03	580,000
1981-01-10	839,000
1981-01-17	638,000
1981-01-24	521,000
1981-01-31	490,000
1981-02-07	500,000
1981-02-14	439,000
1981-02-21	430,000
1981-02-28	432,000
1981-03-07	414,000
1981-03-14	385,000
1981-03-21	365,000
1981-03-28	356,000
1981-04-04	383,000
1981-04-11	401,000
1981-04-18	350,000
1981-04-25	379,000
1981-05-02	342,000
1981-05-09	369,000
1981-05-16	340,000
1981-05-23	342,000
1981-05-30	301,000
1981-06-06	384,000
1981-06-13	367,000
1981-06-20	376,000
1981-06-27	387,000
1981-07-04	430,000
1981-07-11	516,000
1981-07-18	481,000
1981-07-25	429,000
1981-08-01	444,000
1981-08-08	419,000
1981-08-15	369,000
1981-08-22	351,000
1981-08-29	352,000
1981-09-05	396,000
1981-09-12	331,000
1981-09-19	392,000
1981-09-26	392,000
1981-10-03	416,000
1981-10-10	476,000
1981-10-17	408,000
1981-10-24	450,000
1981-10-31	479,000
1981-11-07	534,000
1981-11-14	483,000
1981-11-21	522,000
1981-11-28	535,000
1981-12-05	726,000
1981-12-12	657,000
1981-12-19	644,000
1981-12-26	702,000
1982-01-02	694,300
1982-01-09	1,073,500
1982-01-16	761,700
1982-01-23	771,200
1982-01-30	692,300
1982-02-06	671,000
1982-02-13	532,800
1982-02-20	522,900
1982-02-27	536,300
1982-03-06	566,300
1982-03-13	515,100
1982-03-20	510,500
1982-03-27	501,500
1982-04-03	516,600
1982-04-10	606,300
1982-04-17	540,300
1982-04-24	518,600
1982-05-01	475,600
1982-05-08	516,500
1982-05-15	486,500
1982-05-22	486,300
1982-05-29	485,800
1982-06-05	478,600
1982-06-12	541,600
1982-06-19	508,100
1982-06-26	507,700
1982-07-03	594,400
1982-07-10	631,400
1982-07-17	647,000
1982-07-24	576,100
1982-07-31	562,600
1982-08-07	569,200
1982-08-14	536,400
1982-08-21	510,400
1982-08-28	502,300
1982-09-04	537,600
1982-09-11	467,700
1982-09-18	559,500
1982-09-25	535,000
1982-10-02	565,600
1982-10-09	638,100
1982-10-16	540,300
1982-10-23	577,600
1982-10-30	576,800
1982-11-06	604,800
1982-11-13	546,700
1982-11-20	650,400
1982-11-27	574,100
1982-12-04	709,400
1982-12-11	638,200
1982-12-18	598,000
1982-12-25	653,600
1983-01-01	745,100
1983-01-08	976,600
1983-01-15	773,600
1983-01-22	650,600
1983-01-29	597,700
1983-02-05	594,200
1983-02-12	525,100
1983-02-19	506,300
1983-02-26	448,700
1983-03-05	497,400
1983-03-12	459,700
1983-03-19	427,500
1983-03-26	422,100
1983-04-02	423,000
1983-04-09	509,700
1983-04-16	464,800
1983-04-23	431,300
1983-04-30	399,900
1983-05-07	435,000
1983-05-14	385,200
1983-05-21	380,300
1983-05-28	373,000
1983-06-04	351,100
1983-06-11	390,100
1983-06-18	369,200
1983-06-25	383,500
1983-07-02	397,400
1983-07-09	451,900
1983-07-16	459,400
1983-07-23	428,300
1983-07-30	383,400
1983-08-06	382,500
1983-08-13	382,300
1983-08-20	356,900
1983-08-27	323,600
1983-09-03	328,800
1983-09-10	288,700
1983-09-17	326,900
1983-09-24	324,700
1983-10-01	318,500
1983-10-08	390,500
1983-10-15	319,900
1983-10-22	354,900
1983-10-29	356,400
1983-11-05	398,200
1983-11-12	347,300
1983-11-19	431,900
1983-11-26	362,900
1983-12-03	458,400
1983-12-10	442,900
1983-12-17	414,600
1983-12-24	496,800
1983-12-31	558,900
1984-01-07	621,600
1984-01-14	637,900
1984-01-21	475,100
1984-01-28	448,500
1984-02-04	408,400
1984-02-11	381,500
1984-02-18	349,300
1984-02-25	329,100
1984-03-03	350,500
1984-03-10	344,000
1984-03-17	323,500
1984-03-24	317,600
1984-03-31	291,400
1984-04-07	390,300
1984-04-14	330,800
1984-04-21	326,500
1984-04-28	309,300
1984-05-05	318,900
1984-05-12	312,100
1984-05-19	294,200
1984-05-26	292,700
1984-06-02	268,700
1984-06-09	333,800
1984-06-16	309,900
1984-06-23	316,800
1984-06-30	329,000
1984-07-07	432,500
1984-07-14	435,900
1984-07-21	396,200
1984-07-28	343,800
1984-08-04	348,100
1984-08-11	328,100
1984-08-18	321,000
1984-08-25	303,300
1984-09-01	303,500
1984-09-08	289,300
1984-09-15	320,700
1984-09-22	313,200
1984-09-29	304,700
1984-10-06	373,300
1984-10-13	353,200
1984-10-20	378,700
1984-10-27	380,500
1984-11-03	413,400
1984-11-10	397,500
1984-11-17	370,800
1984-11-24	387,000
1984-12-01	494,700
1984-12-08	477,900
1984-12-15	443,700
1984-12-22	482,300
1984-12-29	527,500
1985-01-05	568,300
1985-01-12	770,000
1985-01-19	537,700
1985-01-26	478,300
1985-02-02	452,400
1985-02-09	473,300
1985-02-16	404,700
1985-02-23	379,000
1985-03-02	377,300
1985-03-09	389,200
1985-03-16	360,500
1985-03-23	346,700
1985-03-30	329,100
1985-04-06	398,000
1985-04-13	397,500
1985-04-20	351,800
1985-04-27	324,700
1985-05-04	335,600
1985-05-11	339,100
1985-05-18	324,900
1985-05-25	328,500
1985-06-01	293,500
1985-06-08	368,900
1985-06-15	339,200
1985-06-22	339,500
1985-06-29	349,800
1985-07-06	409,500
1985-07-13	481,500
1985-07-20	413,700
1985-07-27	358,700
1985-08-03	365,800
1985-08-10	358,200
1985-08-17	319,400
1985-08-24	314,800
1985-08-31	317,600
1985-09-07	304,700
1985-09-14	332,900
1985-09-21	317,600
1985-09-28	301,600
1985-10-05	355,600
1985-10-12	358,000
1985-10-19	331,000
1985-10-26	375,700
1985-11-02	375,300
1985-11-09	404,100
1985-11-16	380,300
1985-11-23	423,100
1985-11-30	384,700
1985-12-07	504,200
1985-12-14	443,400
1985-12-21	458,200
1985-12-28	548,200
1986-01-04	547,500
1986-01-11	803,900
1986-01-18	568,800
1986-01-25	395,700
1986-02-01	425,400
1986-02-08	438,100
1986-02-15	374,200
1986-02-22	382,200
1986-03-01	381,200
1986-03-08	371,700
1986-03-15	361,600
1986-03-22	363,100
1986-03-29	333,300
1986-04-05	366,100
1986-04-12	386,100
1986-04-19	348,700
1986-04-26	335,100
1986-05-03	333,600
1986-05-10	343,800
1986-05-17	319,000
1986-05-24	321,700
1986-05-31	278,700
1986-06-07	342,200
1986-06-14	324,700
1986-06-21	327,400
1986-06-28	336,100
1986-07-05	377,400
1986-07-12	456,200
1986-07-19	402,400
1986-07-26	370,700
1986-08-02	370,900
1986-08-09	376,900
1986-08-16	326,000
1986-08-23	310,200
1986-08-30	307,100
1986-09-06	283,700
1986-09-13	320,800
1986-09-20	315,800
1986-09-27	294,200
1986-10-04	328,900
1986-10-11	357,700
1986-10-18	313,000
1986-10-25	332,400
1986-11-01	334,100
1986-11-08	357,600
1986-11-15	347,400
1986-11-22	410,600
1986-11-29	350,900
1986-12-06	462,700
1986-12-13	438,600
1986-12-20	423,800
1986-12-27	483,900
1987-01-03	483,977
1987-01-10	710,493
1987-01-17	545,768
1987-01-24	412,977
1987-01-31	435,743
1987-02-07	444,240
1987-02-14	359,219
1987-02-21	332,930
1987-02-28	355,357
1987-03-07	343,065
1987-03-14	321,153
1987-03-21	313,104
1987-03-28	288,648
1987-04-04	308,940
1987-04-11	344,364
1987-04-18	305,201
1987-04-25	285,566
1987-05-02	277,726
1987-05-09	276,773
1987-05-16	283,832
1987-05-23	286,150
1987-05-30	242,793
1987-06-06	299,672
1987-06-13	281,043
1987-06-20	285,191
1987-06-27	294,288
1987-07-04	321,855
1987-07-11	402,706
1987-07-18	361,491
1987-07-25	339,756
1987-08-01	309,433
1987-08-08	296,403
1987-08-15	256,647
1987-08-22	245,058
1987-08-29	243,829
1987-09-05	255,589
1987-09-12	210,375
1987-09-19	243,651
1987-09-26	242,206
1987-10-03	244,736
1987-10-10	291,075
1987-10-17	242,157
1987-10-24	271,190
1987-10-31	261,036
1987-11-07	306,340
1987-11-14	286,334
1987-11-21	354,037
1987-11-28	288,614
1987-12-05	412,297
1987-12-12	372,869
1987-12-19	384,763
1987-12-26	397,287
1988-01-02	465,503
1988-01-09	654,620
1988-01-16	577,975
1988-01-23	412,685
1988-01-30	394,776
1988-02-06	380,906
1988-02-13	334,833
1988-02-20	315,497
1988-02-27	324,517
1988-03-05	312,409
1988-03-12	294,321
1988-03-19	275,545
1988-03-26	269,000
1988-04-02	256,607
1988-04-09	319,713
1988-04-16	273,160
1988-04-23	272,440
1988-04-30	247,619
1988-05-07	267,315
1988-05-14	257,101
1988-05-21	259,640
1988-05-28	255,852
1988-06-04	235,308
1988-06-11	268,052
1988-06-18	264,100
1988-06-25	268,770
1988-07-02	290,079
1988-07-09	335,780
1988-07-16	377,872
1988-07-23	384,920
1988-07-30	311,475
1988-08-06	293,718
1988-08-13	261,066
1988-08-20	253,359
1988-08-27	241,809
1988-09-03	243,944
1988-09-10	220,226
1988-09-17	247,250
1988-09-24	236,230
1988-10-01	226,453
1988-10-08	276,732
1988-10-15	237,722
1988-10-22	264,201
1988-10-29	265,794
1988-11-05	293,412
1988-11-12	257,201
1988-11-19	335,818
1988-11-26	281,841
1988-12-03	391,406
1988-12-10	354,028
1988-12-17	354,768
1988-12-24	413,175
1988-12-31	474,226
1989-01-07	544,138
1989-01-14	519,727
1989-01-21	364,499
1989-01-28	361,331
1989-02-04	340,647
1989-02-11	365,301
1989-02-18	317,676
1989-02-25	288,690
1989-03-04	333,669
1989-03-11	325,019
1989-03-18	291,112
1989-03-25	276,369
1989-04-01	275,799
1989-04-08	321,723
1989-04-15	275,240
1989-04-22	271,002
1989-04-29	247,646
1989-05-06	275,425
1989-05-13	275,507
1989-05-20	260,543
1989-05-27	266,146
1989-06-03	243,246
1989-06-10	295,499
1989-06-17	285,589
1989-06-24	295,338
1989-07-01	319,577
1989-07-08	364,594
1989-07-15	423,847
1989-07-22	365,026
1989-07-29	320,773
1989-08-05	311,584
1989-08-12	291,429
1989-08-19	261,419
1989-08-26	254,488
1989-09-02	259,540
1989-09-09	239,989
1989-09-16	271,903
1989-09-23	262,895
1989-09-30	265,310
1989-10-07	375,972
1989-10-14	284,584
1989-10-21	315,473
1989-10-28	317,538
1989-11-04	336,759
1989-11-11	303,556
1989-11-18	377,814
1989-11-25	316,458
1989-12-02	443,684
1989-12-09	426,514
1989-12-16	420,795
1989-12-23	534,261
1989-12-30	515,926
1990-01-06	581,679
1990-01-13	730,995
1990-01-20	485,424
1990-01-27	440,748
1990-02-03	432,922
1990-02-10	429,764
1990-02-17	364,616
1990-02-24	341,969
1990-03-03	361,937
1990-03-10	355,935
1990-03-17	325,164
1990-03-24	306,391
1990-03-31	297,117
1990-04-07	372,079
1990-04-14	315,624
1990-04-21	324,936
1990-04-28	294,785
1990-05-05	304,160
1990-05-12	299,266
1990-05-19	287,082
1990-05-26	295,476
1990-06-02	273,910
1990-06-09	321,727
1990-06-16	305,690
1990-06-23	316,999
1990-06-30	326,407
1990-07-07	419,256
1990-07-14	448,952
1990-07-21	407,676
1990-07-28	353,149
1990-08-04	336,997
1990-08-11	330,678
1990-08-18	313,804
1990-08-25	302,267
1990-09-01	305,510
1990-09-08	277,768
1990-09-15	323,246
1990-09-22	306,549
1990-09-29	308,080
1990-10-06	361,538
1990-10-13	356,203
1990-10-20	387,444
1990-10-27	394,598
1990-11-03	424,771
1990-11-10	463,874
1990-11-17	433,003
1990-11-24	422,676
1990-12-01	568,583
1990-12-08	574,323
1990-12-15	523,403
1990-12-22	637,449
1990-12-29	649,471
1991-01-05	651,775
1991-01-12	872,742
1991-01-19	691,092
1991-01-26	511,360
1991-02-02	563,060
1991-02-09	574,760
1991-02-16	498,200
1991-02-23	492,325
1991-03-02	504,023
1991-03-09	514,410
1991-03-16	470,801
1991-03-23	477,877
1991-03-30	412,904
1991-04-06	448,082
1991-04-13	459,364
1991-04-20	433,912
1991-04-27	385,153
1991-05-04	384,458
1991-05-11	382,113
1991-05-18	366,492
1991-05-25	365,117
1991-06-01	320,632
1991-06-08	397,682
1991-06-15	369,074
1991-06-22	371,232
1991-06-29	370,372
1991-07-06	427,161
1991-07-13	517,888
1991-07-20	454,655
1991-07-27	408,098
1991-08-03	397,522
1991-08-10	385,740
1991-08-17	344,969
1991-08-24	329,287
1991-08-31	328,040
1991-09-07	302,187
1991-09-14	342,419
1991-09-21	333,110
1991-09-28	334,206
1991-10-05	366,862
1991-10-12	388,370
1991-10-19	344,189
1991-10-26	380,253
1991-11-02	427,789
1991-11-09	473,432
1991-11-16	417,766
1991-11-23	503,032
1991-11-30	433,180
1991-12-07	610,113
1991-12-14	554,059
1991-12-21	555,747
1991-12-28	625,772
1992-01-04	652,046
1992-01-11	882,118
1992-01-18	687,914
1992-01-25	504,838
1992-02-01	508,594
1992-02-08	537,238
1992-02-15	469,794
1992-02-22	429,723
1992-02-29	454,987
1992-03-07	434,426
1992-03-14	417,282
1992-03-21	413,180
1992-03-28	370,883
1992-04-04	393,384
1992-04-11	412,948
1992-04-18	366,621
1992-04-25	364,454
1992-05-02	363,794
1992-05-09	364,100
1992-05-16	341,425
1992-05-23	343,432
1992-05-30	305,080
1992-06-06	374,978
1992-06-13	369,067
1992-06-20	369,995
1992-06-27	370,373
1992-07-04	395,505
1992-07-11	506,050
1992-07-18	452,468
1992-07-25	554,590
1992-08-01	382,138
1992-08-08	366,092
1992-08-15	322,729
1992-08-22	312,436
1992-08-29	309,806
1992-09-05	339,006
1992-09-12	299,189
1992-09-19	345,093
1992-09-26	315,455
1992-10-03	326,938
1992-10-10	353,504
1992-10-17	310,235
1992-10-24	333,005
1992-10-31	331,922
1992-11-07	392,213
1992-11-14	348,011
1992-11-21	401,972
1992-11-28	317,218
1992-12-05	449,726
1992-12-12	424,677
1992-12-19	396,619
1992-12-26	392,612
1993-01-02	487,466
1993-01-09	704,930
1993-01-16	558,516
1993-01-23	410,944
1993-01-30	397,000
1993-02-06	384,707
1993-02-13	344,520
1993-02-20	345,116
1993-02-27	367,412
1993-03-06	364,185
1993-03-13	335,154
1993-03-20	315,473
1993-03-27	330,512
1993-04-03	331,871
1993-04-10	346,648
1993-04-17	321,564
1993-04-24	310,916
1993-05-01	285,098
1993-05-08	301,906
1993-05-15	287,944
1993-05-22	285,444
1993-05-29	291,206
1993-06-05	273,411
1993-06-12	308,535
1993-06-19	304,843
1993-06-26	301,549
1993-07-03	334,335
1993-07-10	362,425
1993-07-17	402,348
1993-07-24	418,260
1993-07-31	320,155
1993-08-07	314,579
1993-08-14	277,263
1993-08-21	270,913
1993-08-28	254,231
1993-09-04	270,528
1993-09-11	238,902
1993-09-18	280,903
1993-09-25	265,510
1993-10-02	263,636
1993-10-09	338,726
1993-10-16	288,699
1993-10-23	321,509
1993-10-30	309,359
1993-11-06	365,280
1993-11-13	310,455
1993-11-20	377,935
1993-11-27	306,788
1993-12-04	431,210
1993-12-11	398,560
1993-12-18	382,583
1993-12-25	398,084
1994-01-01	481,735
1994-01-08	676,076
1994-01-15	571,816
1994-01-22	427,570
1994-01-29	481,458
1994-02-05	429,800
1994-02-12	385,594
1994-02-19	368,626
1994-02-26	307,194
1994-03-05	355,250
1994-03-12	331,023
1994-03-19	308,038
1994-03-26	292,661
1994-04-02	289,631
1994-04-09	361,348
1994-04-16	327,166
1994-04-23	298,620
1994-04-30	285,837
1994-05-07	332,414
1994-05-14	303,190
1994-05-21	299,324
1994-05-28	291,797
1994-06-04	273,849
1994-06-11	309,033
1994-06-18	298,198
1994-06-25	305,863
1994-07-02	327,262
1994-07-09	394,428
1994-07-16	443,698
1994-07-23	354,495
1994-07-30	295,979
1994-08-06	304,363
1994-08-13	277,614
1994-08-20	262,131
1994-08-27	257,299
1994-09-03	270,561
1994-09-10	237,526
1994-09-17	264,553
1994-09-24	251,191
1994-10-01	255,588
1994-10-08	322,522
1994-10-15	272,742
1994-10-22	296,646
1994-10-29	291,557
1994-11-05	338,561
1994-11-12	298,030
1994-11-19	366,719
1994-11-26	295,729
1994-12-03	412,824
1994-12-10	397,238
1994-12-17	376,210
1994-12-24	423,387
1994-12-31	482,735
1995-01-07	612,648
1995-01-14	608,872
1995-01-21	400,772
1995-01-28	396,457
1995-02-04	381,813
1995-02-11	387,408
1995-02-18	356,237
1995-02-25	316,927
1995-03-04	342,015
1995-03-11	339,580
1995-03-18	319,218
1995-03-25	305,471
1995-04-01	294,031
1995-04-08	356,914
1995-04-15	318,030
1995-04-22	317,072
1995-04-29	305,594
1995-05-06	325,398
1995-05-13	311,646
1995-05-20	316,305
1995-05-27	314,442
1995-06-03	286,566
1995-06-10	340,606
1995-06-17	337,812
1995-06-24	324,411
1995-07-01	341,207
1995-07-08	428,632
1995-07-15	491,891
1995-07-22	409,319
1995-07-29	311,708
1995-08-05	310,703
1995-08-12	296,712
1995-08-19	286,017
1995-08-26	272,182
1995-09-02	278,703
1995-09-09	266,145
1995-09-16	304,323
1995-09-23	272,431
1995-09-30	269,067
1995-10-07	345,311
1995-10-14	306,465
1995-10-21	322,856
1995-10-28	332,061
1995-11-04	383,687
1995-11-11	335,181
1995-11-18	425,889
1995-11-25	336,269
1995-12-02	474,548
1995-12-09	421,109
1995-12-16	423,450
1995-12-23	490,349
1995-12-30	513,686
1996-01-06	596,010
1996-01-13	637,910
1996-01-20	510,820
1996-01-27	492,966
1996-02-03	433,693
1996-02-10	440,961
1996-02-17	395,332
1996-02-24	347,053
1996-03-02	368,044
1996-03-09	355,818
1996-03-16	357,070
1996-03-23	396,731
1996-03-30	342,023
1996-04-06	353,032
1996-04-13	343,654
1996-04-20	336,033
1996-04-27	291,957
1996-05-04	298,195
1996-05-11	303,532
1996-05-18	287,891
1996-05-25	287,622
1996-06-01	266,116
1996-06-08	329,099
1996-06-15	307,141
1996-06-22	312,226
1996-06-29	315,615
1996-07-06	382,989
1996-07-13	449,510
1996-07-20	360,385
1996-07-27	294,762
1996-08-03	283,216
1996-08-10	285,795
1996-08-17	265,742
1996-08-24	259,677
1996-08-31	251,425
1996-09-07	238,893
1996-09-14	272,464
1996-09-21	273,232
1996-09-28	261,251
1996-10-05	292,029
1996-10-12	306,521
1996-10-19	271,934
1996-10-26	311,965
1996-11-02	320,827
1996-11-09	340,240
1996-11-16	330,730
1996-11-23	383,512
1996-11-30	328,186
1996-12-07	444,305
1996-12-14	404,436
1996-12-21	429,566
1996-12-28	520,650
1997-01-04	541,210
1997-01-11	654,473
1997-01-18	513,913
1997-01-25	385,310
1997-02-01	380,099
1997-02-08	370,766
1997-02-15	320,374
1997-02-22	309,202
1997-03-01	317,339
1997-03-08	314,787
1997-03-15	296,698
1997-03-22	291,463
1997-03-29	268,823
1997-04-05	311,186
1997-04-12	329,663
1997-04-19	286,593
1997-04-26	295,166
1997-05-03	295,629
1997-05-10	278,052
1997-05-17	267,251
1997-05-24	264,697
1997-05-31	248,167
1997-06-07	309,928
1997-06-14	302,577
1997-06-21	290,720
1997-06-28	298,299
1997-07-05	372,574
1997-07-12	434,598
1997-07-19	339,250
1997-07-26	281,794
1997-08-02	273,471
1997-08-09	289,083
1997-08-16	272,910
1997-08-23	255,236
1997-08-30	250,205
1997-09-06	224,948
1997-09-13	253,456
1997-09-20	246,061
1997-09-27	237,214
1997-10-04	260,705
1997-10-11	286,436
1997-10-18	255,634
1997-10-25	272,593
1997-11-01	293,086
1997-11-08	322,842
1997-11-15	311,499
1997-11-22	341,845
1997-11-29	309,788
1997-12-06	402,699
1997-12-13	374,107
1997-12-20	368,823
1997-12-27	445,345
1998-01-03	479,854
1998-01-10	682,016
1998-01-17	512,837
1998-01-24	355,092
1998-01-31	357,976
1998-02-07	368,113
1998-02-14	328,354
1998-02-21	313,367
1998-02-28	313,480
1998-03-07	305,542
1998-03-14	298,302
1998-03-21	293,692
1998-03-28	272,808
1998-04-04	288,484
1998-04-11	294,014
1998-04-18	288,059
1998-04-25	278,220
1998-05-02	261,089
1998-05-09	270,108
1998-05-16	262,107
1998-05-23	259,125
1998-05-30	248,550
1998-06-06	289,495
1998-06-13	293,195
1998-06-20	322,017
1998-06-27	348,842
1998-07-04	379,734
1998-07-11	428,977
1998-07-18	364,767
1998-07-25	314,782
1998-08-01	277,621
1998-08-08	279,621
1998-08-15	246,823
1998-08-22	237,999
1998-08-29	233,516
1998-09-05	255,938
1998-09-12	217,454
1998-09-19	237,609
1998-09-26	220,668
1998-10-03	246,284
1998-10-10	300,862
1998-10-17	257,172
1998-10-24	275,574
1998-10-31	281,932
1998-11-07	332,611
1998-11-14	315,504
1998-11-21	338,501
1998-11-28	295,041
1998-12-05	421,605
1998-12-12	355,872
1998-12-19	344,452
1998-12-26	442,200
1999-01-02	508,983
1999-01-09	713,805
1999-01-16	514,082
1999-01-23	364,737
1999-01-30	349,733
1999-02-06	344,947
1999-02-13	320,679
1999-02-20	286,130
1999-02-27	297,918
1999-03-06	297,325
1999-03-13	289,813
1999-03-20	275,453
1999-03-27	260,817
1999-04-03	263,516
1999-04-10	327,621
1999-04-17	286,018
1999-04-24	263,835
1999-05-01	252,190
1999-05-08	274,268
1999-05-15	251,063
1999-05-22	250,360
1999-05-29	260,517
1999-06-05	256,922
1999-06-12	267,582
1999-06-19	267,825
1999-06-26	269,755
1999-07-03	303,758
1999-07-10	364,078
1999-07-17	369,123
1999-07-24	293,348
1999-07-31	254,195
1999-08-07	259,805
1999-08-14	236,658
1999-08-21	226,061
1999-08-28	219,278
1999-09-04	235,849
1999-09-11	204,302
1999-09-18	219,070
1999-09-25	232,486
1999-10-02	246,445
1999-10-09	278,925
1999-10-16	234,580
1999-10-23	250,864
1999-10-30	257,767
1999-11-06	297,136
1999-11-13	262,607
1999-11-20	309,248
1999-11-27	268,255
1999-12-04	378,735
1999-12-11	318,175
1999-12-18	329,649
1999-12-25	377,695
2000-01-01	439,912
2000-01-08	606,897
2000-01-15	442,494
2000-01-22	328,841
2000-01-29	332,740
2000-02-05	365,245
2000-02-12	311,897
2000-02-19	281,256
2000-02-26	258,962
2000-03-04	283,024
2000-03-11	255,109
2000-03-18	242,139
2000-03-25	239,835
2000-04-01	229,520
2000-04-08	274,130
2000-04-15	237,218
2000-04-22	240,266
2000-04-29	249,458
2000-05-06	259,546
2000-05-13	231,706
2000-05-20	234,599
2000-05-27	239,836
2000-06-03	242,991
2000-06-10	267,752
2000-06-17	265,617
2000-06-24	273,344
2000-07-01	280,979
2000-07-08	363,793
2000-07-15	377,982
2000-07-22	296,255
2000-07-29	253,466
2000-08-05	266,151
2000-08-12	261,358
2000-08-19	251,844
2000-08-26	239,030
2000-09-02	242,375
2000-09-09	229,954
2000-09-16	245,991
2000-09-23	222,219
2000-09-30	227,249
2000-10-07	292,784
2000-10-14	255,082
2000-10-21	263,445
2000-10-28	269,489
2000-11-04	342,414
2000-11-11	294,727
2000-11-18	374,160
2000-11-25	321,859
2000-12-02	447,262
2000-12-09	390,088
2000-12-16	402,476
2000-12-23	481,720
2000-12-30	568,973
2001-01-06	558,768
2001-01-13	599,562
2001-01-20	398,188
2001-01-27	447,386
2001-02-03	424,696
2001-02-10	396,151
2001-02-17	345,841
2001-02-24	357,591
2001-03-03	379,286
2001-03-10	377,210
2001-03-17	351,497
2001-03-24	334,747
2001-03-31	328,576
2001-04-07	397,282
2001-04-14	346,981
2001-04-21	369,745
2001-04-28	353,831
2001-05-05	336,319
2001-05-12	331,765
2001-05-19	338,374
2001-05-26	346,231
2001-06-02	335,765
2001-06-09	397,015
2001-06-16	354,526
2001-06-23	351,770
2001-06-30	375,885
2001-07-07	526,826
2001-07-14	524,139
2001-07-21	406,038
2001-07-28	332,957
2001-08-04	341,660
2001-08-11	333,042
2001-08-18	317,046
2001-08-25	307,850
2001-09-01	319,016
2001-09-08	309,567
2001-09-15	317,245
2001-09-22	353,611
2001-09-29	400,400
2001-10-06	441,754
2001-10-13	426,881
2001-10-20	429,542
2001-10-27	436,901
2001-11-03	443,971
2001-11-10	456,366
2001-11-17	420,259
2001-11-24	438,893
2001-12-01	605,916
2001-12-08	491,836
2001-12-15	440,906
2001-12-22	529,570
2001-12-29	647,045
2002-01-05	637,343
2002-01-12	799,246
2002-01-19	558,297
2002-01-26	431,690
2002-02-02	445,552
2002-02-09	438,611
2002-02-16	376,573
2002-02-23	367,504
2002-03-02	385,272
2002-03-09	386,992
2002-03-16	352,045
2002-03-23	366,372
2002-03-30	386,296
2002-04-06	432,384
2002-04-13	428,834
2002-04-20	385,151
2002-04-27	367,350
2002-05-04	362,681
2002-05-11	358,286
2002-05-18	348,887
2002-05-25	346,439
2002-06-01	309,183
2002-06-08	378,613
2002-06-15	356,096
2002-06-22	358,959
2002-06-29	358,658
2002-07-06	456,716
2002-07-13	506,718
2002-07-20	394,586
2002-07-27	338,441
2002-08-03	326,356
2002-08-10	332,673
2002-08-17	313,869
2002-08-24	314,852
2002-08-31	310,864
2002-09-07	318,361
2002-09-14	337,577
2002-09-21	317,264
2002-09-28	319,063
2002-10-05	365,613
2002-10-12	385,689
2002-10-19	349,927
2002-10-26	375,591
2002-11-02	397,346
2002-11-09	427,078
2002-11-16	372,829
2002-11-23	436,549
2002-11-30	385,788
2002-12-07	547,430
2002-12-14	486,258
2002-12-21	483,449
2002-12-28	620,929
2003-01-04	620,004
2003-01-11	724,111
2003-01-18	542,563
2003-01-25	434,888
2003-02-01	449,286
2003-02-08	439,520
2003-02-15	398,291
2003-02-22	387,536
2003-03-01	429,782
2003-03-08	414,568
2003-03-15	389,909
2003-03-22	361,492
2003-03-29	371,692
2003-04-05	394,160
2003-04-12	434,911
2003-04-19	399,180
2003-04-26	401,342
2003-05-03	377,383
2003-05-10	364,287
2003-05-17	362,276
2003-05-24	359,500
2003-05-31	351,890
2003-06-07	421,190
2003-06-14	383,371
2003-06-21	376,560
2003-06-28	394,214
2003-07-05	483,401
2003-07-12	552,621
2003-07-19	429,381
2003-07-26	348,382
2003-08-02	333,770
2003-08-09	348,207
2003-08-16	312,087
2003-08-23	313,058
2003-08-30	319,362
2003-09-06	322,501
2003-09-13	328,414
2003-09-20	301,217
2003-09-27	304,968
2003-10-04	337,880
2003-10-11	368,876
2003-10-18	328,572
2003-10-25	352,117
2003-11-01	345,573
2003-11-08	397,387
2003-11-15	347,719
2003-11-22	397,990
2003-11-29	357,811
2003-12-06	486,202
2003-12-13	412,627
2003-12-20	424,192
2003-12-27	516,493
2004-01-03	552,815
2004-01-10	677,897
2004-01-17	490,763
2004-01-24	382,262
2004-01-31	406,298
2004-02-07	433,234
2004-02-14	341,634
2004-02-21	328,171
2004-02-28	342,140
2004-03-06	339,007
2004-03-13	312,067
2004-03-20	304,462
2004-03-27	296,776
2004-04-03	304,249
2004-04-10	350,739
2004-04-17	334,965
2004-04-24	313,686
2004-05-01	283,236
2004-05-08	292,754
2004-05-15	297,061
2004-05-22	293,974
2004-05-29	304,067
2004-06-05	308,229
2004-06-12	313,930
2004-06-19	322,481
2004-06-26	318,746
2004-07-03	349,920
2004-07-10	444,531
2004-07-17	394,372
2004-07-24	313,225
2004-07-31	282,128
2004-08-07	291,611
2004-08-14	262,936
2004-08-21	274,433
2004-08-28	276,308
2004-09-04	274,930
2004-09-11	250,568
2004-09-18	275,846
2004-09-25	282,729
2004-10-02	279,591
2004-10-09	338,711
2004-10-16	279,846
2004-10-23	317,573
2004-10-30	305,546
2004-11-06	351,404
2004-11-13	311,901
2004-11-20	355,954
2004-11-27	320,690
2004-12-04	473,570
2004-12-11	370,604
2004-12-18	374,749
2004-12-25	446,699
2005-01-01	540,927
2005-01-08	693,776
2005-01-15	467,862
2005-01-22	360,583
2005-01-29	364,704
2005-02-05	347,391
2005-02-12	309,290
2005-02-19	303,814
2005-02-26	290,776
2005-03-05	332,067
2005-03-12	307,061
2005-03-19	290,719
2005-03-26	291,378
2005-04-02	294,994
2005-04-09	339,709
2005-04-16	285,657
2005-04-23	299,891
2005-04-30	290,824
2005-05-07	297,347
2005-05-14	275,524
2005-05-21	276,761
2005-05-28	304,306
2005-06-04	289,914
2005-06-11	315,938
2005-06-18	289,831
2005-06-25	286,681
2005-07-02	327,268
2005-07-09	427,323
2005-07-16	374,665
2005-07-23	295,026
2005-07-30	261,906
2005-08-06	269,746
2005-08-13	257,151
2005-08-20	252,016
2005-08-27	251,642
2005-09-03	271,613
2005-09-10	322,387
2005-09-17	346,204
2005-09-24	292,435
2005-10-01	313,847
2005-10-08	380,093
2005-10-15	303,158
2005-10-22	304,733
2005-10-29	294,376
2005-11-05	340,491
2005-11-12	283,564
2005-11-19	368,859
2005-11-26	290,730
2005-12-03	444,600
2005-12-10	391,961
2005-12-17	359,108
2005-12-24	433,397
2005-12-31	475,889
2006-01-07	555,114
2006-01-14	439,873
2006-01-21	317,926
2006-01-28	318,805
2006-02-04	321,527
2006-02-11	310,078
2006-02-18	269,571
2006-02-25	272,478
2006-03-04	301,867
2006-03-11	294,764
2006-03-18	269,237
2006-03-25	265,370
2006-04-01	253,985
2006-04-08	314,696
2006-04-15	268,472
2006-04-22	291,349
2006-04-29	279,715
2006-05-06	317,239
2006-05-13	288,972
2006-05-20	277,168
2006-05-27	292,714
2006-06-03	260,263
2006-06-10	285,892
2006-06-17	277,441
2006-06-24	287,503
2006-07-01	304,638
2006-07-08	418,363
2006-07-15	377,115
2006-07-22	288,875
2006-07-29	259,974
2006-08-05	275,430
2006-08-12	256,259
2006-08-19	252,357
2006-08-26	251,275
2006-09-02	259,539
2006-09-09	240,231
2006-09-16	267,036
2006-09-23	261,396
2006-09-30	249,288
2006-10-07	307,646
2006-10-14	271,863
2006-10-21	291,372
2006-10-28	301,079
2006-11-04	326,711
2006-11-11	286,151
2006-11-18	367,690
2006-11-25	323,509
2006-12-02	448,898
2006-12-09	384,123
2006-12-16	361,672
2006-12-23	425,357
2006-12-30	499,979
2007-01-06	506,059
2007-01-13	506,709
2007-01-20	367,583
2007-01-27	359,959
2007-02-03	339,018
2007-02-10	363,018
2007-02-17	305,945
2007-02-24	299,000
2007-03-03	320,194
2007-03-10	298,927
2007-03-17	277,187
2007-03-24	273,432
2007-03-31	268,218
2007-04-07	328,266
2007-04-14	317,917
2007-04-21	303,984
2007-04-28	267,672
2007-05-05	274,801
2007-05-12	258,516
2007-05-19	270,446
2007-05-26	273,397
2007-06-02	263,527
2007-06-09	302,368
2007-06-16	290,951
2007-06-23	292,583
2007-06-30	300,348
2007-07-07	417,554
2007-07-14	383,839
2007-07-21	298,366
2007-07-28	257,426
2007-08-04	270,563
2007-08-11	266,420
2007-08-18	257,573
2007-08-25	266,179
2007-09-01	257,454
2007-09-08	245,526
2007-09-15	261,971
2007-09-22	247,643
2007-09-29	255,431
2007-10-06	298,317
2007-10-13	306,519
2007-10-20	307,675
2007-10-27	303,357
2007-11-03	325,831
2007-11-10	351,760
2007-11-17	323,124
2007-11-24	324,047
2007-12-01	462,902
2007-12-08	423,130
2007-12-15	393,042
2007-12-22	456,280
2007-12-29	507,908
2008-01-05	522,700
2008-01-12	547,943
2008-01-19	415,397
2008-01-26	369,498
2008-02-02	380,234
2008-02-09	377,595
2008-02-16	325,886
2008-02-23	330,013
2008-03-01	345,287
2008-03-08	341,364
2008-03-15	335,909
2008-03-22	316,208
2008-03-29	342,189
2008-04-05	357,209
2008-04-12	370,960
2008-04-19	328,334
2008-04-26	337,854
2008-05-03	335,533
2008-05-10	325,479
2008-05-17	319,817
2008-05-24	326,627
2008-05-31	300,989
2008-06-07	373,033
2008-06-14	349,254
2008-06-21	358,158
2008-06-28	368,544
2008-07-05	401,672
2008-07-12	476,071
2008-07-19	403,607
2008-07-26	374,182
2008-08-02	381,887
2008-08-09	372,807
2008-08-16	342,164
2008-08-23	344,255
2008-08-30	360,485
2008-09-06	336,131
2008-09-13	381,720
2008-09-20	397,610
2008-09-27	392,121
2008-10-04	426,786
2008-10-11	454,100
2008-10-18	416,114
2008-10-25	449,429
2008-11-01	466,373
2008-11-08	539,812
2008-11-15	513,047
2008-11-22	609,128
2008-11-29	537,230
2008-12-06	760,481
2008-12-13	629,867
2008-12-20	719,691
2008-12-27	717,000
2009-01-03	731,958
2009-01-10	956,791
2009-01-17	763,987
2009-01-24	620,143
2009-01-31	682,176
2009-02-07	710,152
2009-02-14	619,951
2009-02-21	605,668
2009-02-28	645,827
2009-03-07	652,635
2009-03-14	601,192
2009-03-21	590,067
2009-03-28	599,299
2009-04-04	623,279
2009-04-11	610,522
2009-04-18	596,564
2009-04-25	583,457
2009-05-02	536,648
2009-05-09	570,412
2009-05-16	540,925
2009-05-23	538,311
2009-05-30	500,380
2009-06-06	581,092
2009-06-13	562,449
2009-06-20	572,425
2009-06-27	563,387
2009-07-04	585,963
2009-07-11	677,038
2009-07-18	590,730
2009-07-25	516,351
2009-08-01	470,988
2009-08-08	486,586
2009-08-15	461,780
2009-08-22	460,998
2009-08-29	460,525
2009-09-05	470,079
2009-09-12	414,557
2009-09-19	441,311
2009-09-26	449,620
2009-10-03	456,233
2009-10-10	513,852
2009-10-17	464,985
2009-10-24	499,374
2009-10-31	487,714
2009-11-07	537,230
2009-11-14	479,350
2009-11-21	547,022
2009-11-28	462,090
2009-12-05	673,097
2009-12-12	561,655
2009-12-19	571,378
2009-12-26	561,852
2010-01-02	651,215
2010-01-09	825,891
2010-01-16	659,173
2010-01-23	507,651
2010-01-30	538,617
2010-02-06	512,463
2010-02-13	482,078
2010-02-20	458,160
2010-02-27	474,662
2010-03-06	462,679
2010-03-13	439,061
2010-03-20	413,067
2010-03-27	412,710
2010-04-03	421,130
2010-04-10	514,136
2010-04-17	436,814
2010-04-24	429,196
2010-05-01	399,350
2010-05-08	414,327
2010-05-15	414,572
2010-05-22	410,778
2010-05-29	418,873
2010-06-05	398,864
2010-06-12	448,305
2010-06-19	427,080
2010-06-26	444,712
2010-07-03	470,366
2010-07-10	515,991
2010-07-17	502,065
2010-07-24	413,679
2010-07-31	402,140
2010-08-07	425,471
2010-08-14	405,484
2010-08-21	384,955
2010-08-28	383,135
2010-09-04	381,863
2010-09-11	341,791
2010-09-18	382,341
2010-09-25	372,551
2010-10-02	373,681
2010-10-09	462,667
2010-10-16	394,016
2010-10-23	408,489
2010-10-30	421,097
2010-11-06	452,657
2010-11-13	409,548
2010-11-20	464,817
2010-11-27	412,922
2010-12-04	585,711
2010-12-11	491,776
2010-12-18	495,548
2010-12-25	525,710
2011-01-01	578,904
2011-01-08	773,499
2011-01-15	549,688
2011-01-22	485,950
2011-01-29	464,775
2011-02-05	440,706
2011-02-12	424,400
2011-02-19	380,985
2011-02-26	353,797
2011-03-05	407,299
2011-03-12	371,721
2011-03-19	354,457
2011-03-26	357,457
2011-04-02	353,817
2011-04-09	448,029
2011-04-16	381,834
2011-04-23	387,867
2011-04-30	415,974
2011-05-07	397,737
2011-05-14	361,573
2011-05-21	376,632
2011-05-28	381,497
2011-06-04	366,816
2011-06-11	400,608
2011-06-18	394,286
2011-06-25	406,633
2011-07-02	425,640
2011-07-09	473,963
2011-07-16	470,086
2011-07-23	369,207
2011-07-30	341,103
2011-08-06	354,408
2011-08-13	346,014
2011-08-20	344,870
2011-08-27	336,761
2011-09-03	348,582
2011-09-10	328,868
2011-09-17	353,820
2011-09-24	328,073
2011-10-01	332,394
2011-10-08	405,906
2011-10-15	357,562
2011-10-22	377,156
2011-10-29	369,647
2011-11-05	402,532
2011-11-12	363,016
2011-11-19	440,157
2011-11-26	372,640
2011-12-03	528,793
2011-12-10	435,863
2011-12-17	421,103
2011-12-24	497,689
2011-12-31	540,057
2012-01-07	646,219
2012-01-14	525,422
2012-01-21	416,880
2012-01-28	422,287
2012-02-04	401,365
2012-02-11	365,014
2012-02-18	346,659
2012-02-25	334,242
2012-03-03	368,433
2012-03-10	340,102
2012-03-17	319,498
2012-03-24	323,373
2012-03-31	315,800
2012-04-07	390,064
2012-04-14	370,482
2012-04-21	370,632
2012-04-28	333,476
2012-05-05	341,080
2012-05-12	325,094
2012-05-19	330,427
2012-05-26	346,260
2012-06-02	324,385
2012-06-09	376,610
2012-06-16	364,548
2012-06-23	370,521
2012-06-30	369,826
2012-07-07	442,192
2012-07-14	455,260
2012-07-21	340,780
2012-07-28	312,931
2012-08-04	320,219
2012-08-11	317,680
2012-08-18	311,857
2012-08-25	312,542
2012-09-01	309,537
2012-09-08	299,729
2012-09-15	330,454
2012-09-22	303,685
2012-09-29	301,046
2012-10-06	329,925
2012-10-13	362,730
2012-10-20	345,227
2012-10-27	339,924
2012-11-03	361,823
2012-11-10	478,551
2012-11-17	403,636
2012-11-24	358,865
2012-12-01	500,163
2012-12-08	429,191
2012-12-15	401,431
2012-12-22	457,584
2012-12-29	490,126
2013-01-05	557,424
2013-01-12	558,047
2013-01-19	437,360
2013-01-26	369,567
2013-02-02	388,708
2013-02-09	361,759
2013-02-16	351,087
2013-02-23	310,512
2013-03-02	335,794
2013-03-09	317,661
2013-03-16	301,471
2013-03-23	316,133
2013-03-30	317,494
2013-04-06	356,935
2013-04-13	359,415
2013-04-20	326,264
2013-04-27	301,622
2013-05-04	301,602
2013-05-11	320,253
2013-05-18	303,357
2013-05-25	319,508
2013-06-01	294,608
2013-06-08	332,964
2013-06-15	336,970
2013-06-22	336,901
2013-06-29	335,424
2013-07-06	383,811
2013-07-13	410,974
2013-07-20	340,457
2013-07-27	281,692
2013-08-03	288,861
2013-08-10	282,756
2013-08-17	281,164
2013-08-24	279,803
2013-08-31	269,359
2013-09-07	229,648
2013-09-14	272,946
2013-09-21	255,087
2013-09-28	252,196
2013-10-05	335,937
2013-10-12	360,957
2013-10-19	312,037
2013-10-26	325,326
2013-11-02	331,867
2013-11-09	364,167
2013-11-16	327,053
2013-11-23	369,197
2013-11-30	321,896
2013-12-07	463,413
2013-12-14	414,613
2013-12-21	418,272
2013-12-28	452,664
2014-01-04	488,537
2014-01-11	534,966
2014-01-18	416,116
2014-01-25	357,806
2014-02-01	357,742
2014-02-08	360,338
2014-02-15	322,761
2014-02-22	312,665
2014-03-01	317,832
2014-03-08	302,311
2014-03-15	285,970
2014-03-22	274,072
2014-03-29	294,862
2014-04-05	299,162
2014-04-12	318,793
2014-04-19	299,182
2014-04-26	318,127
2014-05-03	288,748
2014-05-10	270,738
2014-05-17	287,398
2014-05-24	275,412
2014-05-31	264,133
2014-06-07	313,371
2014-06-14	301,195
2014-06-21	305,029
2014-06-28	305,791
2014-07-05	322,753
2014-07-12	370,559
2014-07-19	287,049
2014-07-26	257,625
2014-08-02	247,877
2014-08-09	269,468
2014-08-16	249,463
2014-08-23	249,006
2014-08-30	249,780
2014-09-06	234,755
2014-09-13	242,318
2014-09-20	239,780
2014-09-27	227,571
2014-10-04	257,545
2014-10-11	273,756
2014-10-18	256,166
2014-10-25	271,331
2014-11-01	266,921
2014-11-08	309,338
2014-11-15	286,115
2014-11-22	357,202
2014-11-29	294,389
2014-12-06	389,284
2014-12-13	327,827
2014-12-20	340,827
2014-12-27	389,757
2015-01-03	439,342
2015-01-10	529,685
2015-01-17	383,538
2015-01-24	281,885
2015-01-31	306,643
2015-02-07	324,158
2015-02-14	277,904
2015-02-21	280,639
2015-02-28	315,566
2015-03-07	277,925
2015-03-14	260,242
2015-03-21	248,032
2015-03-28	239,748
2015-04-04	253,533
2015-04-11	308,173
2015-04-18	279,797
2015-04-25	250,780
2015-05-02	236,421
2015-05-09	242,882
2015-05-16	243,612
2015-05-23	253,454
2015-05-30	230,676
2015-06-06	275,619
2015-06-13	258,764
2015-06-20	263,199
2015-06-27	274,646
2015-07-04	303,585
2015-07-11	344,471
2015-07-18	262,949
2015-07-25	230,314
2015-08-01	224,104
2015-08-08	239,326
2015-08-15	229,251
2015-08-22	226,649
2015-08-29	230,079
2015-09-05	232,507
2015-09-12	198,903
2015-09-19	219,342
2015-09-26	215,116
2015-10-03	227,176
2015-10-10	256,522
2015-10-17	232,860
2015-10-24	245,365
2015-10-31	258,440
2015-11-07	291,098
2015-11-14	264,816
2015-11-21	305,424
2015-11-28	262,628
2015-12-05	384,491
2015-12-12	313,276
2015-12-19	319,641
2015-12-26	346,542
2016-01-02	405,368
2016-01-09	502,904
2016-01-16	378,747
2016-01-23	295,936
2016-01-30	311,940
2016-02-06	290,796
2016-02-13	258,380
2016-02-20	248,870
2016-02-27	265,802
2016-03-05	247,628
2016-03-12	236,888
2016-03-19	230,882
2016-03-26	235,716
2016-04-02	245,035
2016-04-09	270,419
2016-04-16	242,400
2016-04-23	245,040
2016-04-30	243,392
2016-05-07	261,899
2016-05-14	244,869
2016-05-21	240,798
2016-05-28	246,740
2016-06-04	232,300
2016-06-11	266,277
2016-06-18	247,968
2016-06-25	263,662
2016-07-02	267,437
2016-07-09	298,673
2016-07-16	268,526
2016-07-23	231,925
2016-07-30	219,202
2016-08-06	231,542
2016-08-13	219,570
2016-08-20	217,011
2016-08-27	215,688
2016-09-03	217,715
2016-09-10	193,291
2016-09-17	205,649
2016-09-24	198,455
2016-10-01	200,456
2016-10-08	238,581
2016-10-15	233,633
2016-10-22	237,314
2016-10-29	245,751
2016-11-05	258,608
2016-11-12	223,770
2016-11-19	287,794
2016-11-26	249,774
2016-12-03	351,580
2016-12-10	305,268
2016-12-17	315,068
2016-12-24	343,213
2016-12-31	350,561
2017-01-07	414,742
2017-01-14	352,799
2017-01-21	284,030
2017-01-28	280,983
2017-02-04	259,713
2017-02-11	245,886
2017-02-18	239,322
2017-02-25	212,829
2017-03-04	243,959
2017-03-11	222,227
2017-03-18	224,693
2017-03-25	228,269
2017-04-01	208,347
2017-04-08	239,823
2017-04-15	225,864
2017-04-22	241,611
2017-04-29	210,955
2017-05-06	215,040
2017-05-13	206,905
2017-05-20	210,544
2017-05-27	232,138
2017-06-03	212,696
2017-06-10	234,652
2017-06-17	228,883
2017-06-24	239,635
2017-07-01	252,886
2017-07-08	284,329
2017-07-15	257,763
2017-07-22	220,455
2017-07-29	198,776
2017-08-05	211,924
2017-08-12	198,280
2017-08-19	195,130
2017-08-26	196,227
2017-09-02	250,627
2017-09-09	211,923
2017-09-16	212,313
2017-09-23	212,987
2017-09-30	204,180
2017-10-07	229,241
2017-10-14	205,592
2017-10-21	216,004
2017-10-28	215,977
2017-11-04	242,111
2017-11-11	236,654
2017-11-18	275,004
2017-11-25	224,851
2017-12-02	326,052
2017-12-09	282,055
2017-12-16	287,479
2017-12-23	325,180
2017-12-30	351,500
2018-01-06	403,930
2018-01-13	354,708
2018-01-20	260,432
2018-01-27	268,197
2018-02-03	243,422
2018-02-10	233,252
2018-02-17	212,609
2018-02-24	196,294
2018-03-03	225,893
2018-03-10	205,185
2018-03-17	198,649
2018-03-24	195,433
2018-03-31	201,057
2018-04-07	231,759
2018-04-14	226,090
2018-04-21	200,139
2018-04-28	186,451
2018-05-05	190,262
2018-05-12	195,214
2018-05-19	207,043
2018-05-26	202,846
2018-06-02	191,523
2018-06-09	217,289
2018-06-16	206,023
2018-06-23	222,766
2018-06-30	231,539
2018-07-07	264,869
2018-07-14	232,238
2018-07-21	201,288
2018-07-28	179,880
2018-08-04	185,174
2018-08-11	180,038
2018-08-18	173,331
2018-08-25	175,745
2018-09-01	173,607
2018-09-08	162,640
2018-09-15	173,624
2018-09-22	172,930
2018-09-29	171,816
2018-10-06	193,936
2018-10-13	190,501
2018-10-20	198,733
2018-10-27	198,530
2018-11-03	214,814
2018-11-10	235,981
2018-11-17	226,576
2018-11-24	218,658
2018-12-01	317,936
2018-12-08	261,525
2018-12-15	255,195
2018-12-22	291,581
2018-12-29	327,388
2019-01-05	350,681
2019-01-12	343,678
2019-01-19	269,369
2019-01-26	250,580
2019-02-02	254,263
2019-02-09	242,762
2019-02-16	210,679
2019-02-23	203,049
2019-03-02	220,540
2019-03-09	209,302
2019-03-16	194,335
2019-03-23	190,023
2019-03-30	183,775
2019-04-06	196,071
2019-04-13	196,364
2019-04-20	211,762
2019-04-27	204,755
2019-05-04	204,033
2019-05-11	188,264
2019-05-18	191,931
2019-05-25	198,194
2019-06-01	189,577
2019-06-08	220,186
2019-06-15	205,921
2019-06-22	225,819
2019-06-29	224,565
2019-07-06	231,995
2019-07-13	243,621
2019-07-20	196,382
2019-07-27	178,897
2019-08-03	179,879
2019-08-10	186,914
2019-08-17	171,386
2019-08-24	176,867
2019-08-31	179,516
2019-09-07	160,342
2019-09-14	173,134
2019-09-21	175,394
2019-09-28	172,968
2019-10-05	188,106
2019-10-12	201,677
2019-10-19	186,748
2019-10-26	198,733
2019-11-02	205,625
2019-11-09	238,996
2019-11-16	227,892
2019-11-23	252,428
2019-11-30	216,827
2019-12-07	317,866
2019-12-14	270,547
2019-12-21	287,243
2019-12-28	312,524
2020-01-04	335,480
2020-01-11	338,550
2020-01-18	282,088
2020-01-25	229,002
2020-02-01	224,664
2020-02-08	219,601
2020-02-15	209,336
2020-02-22	199,278
2020-02-29	216,982
2020-03-07	200,382
2020-03-14	251,416
2020-03-21	2,920,162
2020-03-28	6,015,821
2020-04-04	6,211,406
2020-04-11	4,964,568
2020-04-18	4,267,395

ChartData Download data

Note: Due to the scale of the chart and rapid increase in initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims, the initial UI claims for the last five weeks appear to align vertically.

Source: U.S. Employment and Training Administration, Initial Claims [ICSA], retrieved from Department of Labor (DOL), https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf and https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims.asp, April 23, 2020

All else equal, job losses of this magnitude would translate into an unemployment rate of 18.3%. However, the official unemployment rate, when it is released, will likely not reflect all coronavirus-related layoffs. This is due to the fact that jobless workers are only counted as unemployed if they are actively seeking work. That means many workers who lose their job as a result of the virus will be counted as dropping out of the labor force instead of as unemployed, because they are unable to search for work due to the lockdown.

Widespread reports of UI systems collapsing under the weight of so many applications raise the question not only of how many would-be applicants have been frozen out, but also of how many of those who managed to apply are actually receiving benefits. The data to get at that last question are lagged a week, but they show that roughly 71% of applicants are receiving benefits. That is calculated from noting that between March 14 and April 11, the total number of workers receiving benefits (known as “continued claims” or “insured unemployment”) increased by 14.4 million. Over the same period, 20.1 million workers filed unemployment insurance claims. That means that by April 11, only roughly 14.4 million out of 20.1 million new filers, or 71%, were receiving benefits. Applied to the current data, that would mean that roughly 7.0 million UI applicants from the coronavirus period are still waiting to receive their benefits.

Posted April 22, 2020 at 5:10 pm by Celine McNicholas and Margaret Poydock

Trump’s corporate-first agenda has weakened worker protections needed to combat the coronavirus

Using the COVID-19 pandemic as cover, the Trump administration is reportedly preparing to take executive action to repeal and suspend federal regulations. This should not be a surprise—one of Trump’s first actions after taking office was to issue an executive order requiring federal agencies to identify at least two existing regulations to “repeal” when proposing a new regulation. Now seizing on the public health crisis and its economic impact as an excuse, the Trump administration is framing this renewed push to deregulate as a necessary policy response to promote economic growth, focusing on repealing and suspending regulations that impact businesses.

Deregulation has long been a central component of the corporate-interest agenda, and the Trump administration has certainly obliged. While the coronavirus was not under anyone’s control, President Trump’s failure to establish strong worker protections during his first term, through laws and regulations, has helped create the crisis millions of essential workers now confront every day on the job. The following are examples of how the Trump administration’s corporate-driven agenda has weakened worker protections needed to combat the coronavirus.

President Trump blocked the Workplace Injury and Illness record-keeping rule, which would have clarified an employer’s obligation under the Occupational Safety and Health Act to maintain accurate records of workplace injuries and illnesses. As a result, OSHA does not require employers to keep accurate records that could be used to identify unsafe, potentially life-threatening working conditions.

President Trump blocked the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, which would have helped ensure that taxpayer dollars were not awarded to contractors who violate basic labor and employment laws. Without this regulatory safeguard, more than 300,000 workers have been the victims of wage-related labor violations while working under federal contracts in the last decade.

Posted April 21, 2020 at 2:50 pm by Heidi Shierholz

The extreme jobless numbers will lead to a jump in the unemployment rate, but that won’t tell the whole story

In the four weeks between March 15 and April 11, more than 20 million workers applied for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. This is more than five times the worst four-week stretch of the Great Recession, which, at the time, was the worst recession the United States had seen since the Great Depression. What are we really up against here?

The situation is unfolding quickly, but one helpful way to understand it is to put the UI numbers in the context of the unemployment rate. When we do that, we find the jump in jobless claims over the last four weeks would have increased the unemployment rate to 15.7%—if everything else (like the rate of hiring and the rate of people voluntarily quitting their jobs) stayed the same—and all the workers who filed for unemployment benefits were counted as unemployed. But everything else definitely did not stay the same, and it is unlikely that all the workers applying for UI were counted as unemployed.

Everything else did not stay the same. The overall change in employment over any period is equal to the number of hires over the period minus the number of job “separations” over the period (in the pre-virus period, there were around 5.9 million hires and 5.7 million separations every month). For one, hires drop dramatically in recessions. And secondly, separations are not just job losses where people filed for UI. They can also be job losses where people didn’t file for UI (or were frozen out of the system), or voluntary quits, retirements, or worker deaths. All these parts are moving right now. In other words, there are important elements aside from what shows up in the UI data that go into determining the overall change in employment. As a result, it remains to be seen if the overall employment decline related to the coronavirus will be greater or less than the increase in coronavirus-related jobless claims.
Not all workers who filed for unemployment benefits will be counted as unemployed. A worker is counted as unemployed in the monthly unemployment numbers if they are on furlough (i.e., on temporary layoff), or if they don’t have a job but are available to work and are actively seeking work. So, someone who lost their job but is not actively seeking work because the virus makes job search impossible will not be counted as unemployed. And someone who lost their job because they have to care for a child whose school or day care closed would not be counted as unemployed because they are not available to work. Instead, these workers would be counted as dropping out of the labor force. It is difficult to know what share of workers who applied for unemployment insurance benefits will be counted as unemployed, but in the March unemployment data, which showed the leading edge of the impact of the virus, only about half of the drop in employment showed up as an increase in unemployment, and the rest showed up as a drop in the labor force participation rate. If that ratio holds, the unemployment rate will rise only half as much as it “should” in this crisis. (This is why it would be useful to use the employment rate as the metric when determining when pandemic-related relief provisions should trigger off, instead of solely the unemployment rate.)

Posted April 20, 2020 at 4:05 pm by Celine McNicholas

Workers Memorial Day highlights Secretary of Labor Scalia’s failure to protect workers during the coronavirus crisis

April 28 is Workers Memorial Day, a day observed around the world to remember those workers killed or injured on the job and to fight for strong safety and health protections for all workers. This fight has never been more critical. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed a reality many workers have long confronted—workers are routinely forced to work in unsafe conditions, risking their health and safety for a job.

In 2018, the most recent annual data available, more than 5,000 U.S. workers died on the job. Prior to the pandemic, an average of 14 workers died each day of workplace injuries. This does not include workers who died from occupational diseases, estimated to be nearly 100,000 each year. In total, 275 workers died each day in 2018 as the result of workplace injuries and illnesses, and more than 3.5 million workers were injured at work in 2018.

As staggering as these data are, they understate the problem. Widespread underreporting as well as limitations in the injury and illness reporting system mean that many worker injuries remain uncounted. Worker health and safety experts estimate that more than seven million workers suffer workplace injuries and illnesses each year.

The coronavirus pandemic lays bare the long-standing failure of existing U.S. health and safety laws to protect workers. Weak worker protections cost thousands of workers’ lives each year and are now leaving essential workers unprotected on the job during this crisis. Over the last few months alone, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has received thousands of complaints from workers concerned about workplace exposure to COVID-19 and a lack of safeguards on the job.

While policymakers have been quick to highlight the sacrifices and heroic efforts of essential workers at this moment, they have done little to change the system to ensure that these workers are protected on the job. As a result, workers continue to be required to work without protective gear. Sick workers continue to lack access to paid leave. And, when workers try to speak up for themselves and each other, they are fired. Workers are dying as a result.

Instead of looking for ways to address weak health and safety protections for workers in this crisis, Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia is taking this opportunity to weaken protections for millions of workers. He issued a rule exempting certain firms from being required to provide paid sick and family medical leave to workers, which could rob nine million health care workers and 4.4 million first responders from paid leave protections. Further, Scalia has refused to require employers to follow Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidance for public businesses.

Posted April 20, 2020 at 1:44 pm by Colin Gordon, Hannah Halbert, and Laura Dresser

Weak labor protections have put Midwestern food processing workers at risk for coronavirus

Earlier this year, our report Race in the Heartland detailed stark and pervasive racial disparities in Midwestern states—tracing these to long-standing patterns of discrimination and segregation in the region and the disproportionate impact of “rust belt” deindustrialization and the collapse of union membership for workers of color. Unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 crisis has magnified these disparities and their consequences. Across the Midwest, residential and occupational segregation put African Americans and Hispanics in the region more at risk. And across the Midwest, public policies—by design and by neglect—do little to address or alleviate that risk.

Workers of color are disproportionately exposed at work. The luxury of working from home is steeply stratified by race and income. African American and Hispanic workers are overrepresented in low-wage direct service occupations; in the 12 states of the Midwest, for example, Hispanic workers make up 7% of the labor force but over 18% of the workforce in building and cleaning services. In Midwestern cities, African American workers are dramatically overrepresented in occupations like child care and public transit. Across the rural Midwest, workers of color make up the majority of the workforce in the concentrations of low-wage food-processing production that dot the landscape.

In all of these settings, workers face both a greater risk of unemployment as the service economy shuts down and a heightened risk of exposure if and where they keep working. These risks are exaggerated in the Midwest, where four states (Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska) are among the five nationwide that still do not have statewide stay-at-home orders. In these states, the list of “essential businesses” is expansive and idiosyncratic, the expectation that workers show up—regardless of the risks—is clear, and the protection offered workers—by public policies or by their places of employment—is virtually nonexistent.

Tagged Coronavirus Manufacturing

Posted April 17, 2020 at 2:49 pm by Hunter Blair and Jaimie Worker

How Southern state policymakers can strengthen democracy and protect voter health during the coronavirus pandemic

This is the final installment of a three-part series examining the economic and social conditions that impact health outcomes in Southern states, and how these conditions leave communities underprepared to protect front-line workers and communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the earlier pieces of this three-part series, we described what actions are especially needed in Southern states to protect public health and front-line workers and communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we highlight action that is also needed in the South to address the threats the coronavirus poses to participation in our democracy at the expense of voter and poll worker health. The country witnessed this most recently during the Wisconsin presidential primary election last week. As we describe below, Southern states already face significant challenges to democratic participation. The coronavirus pandemic further heightens the need around the country and especially in the South to address longstanding barriers to free and fair elections, an accurate count for the once-a-decade census, and a legislative process that is accountable to the communities elected officials represent.

Free and fair elections and healthy voters

Today, voter suppression, which disproportionately impacts black and brown people, comes in the form of enforcing strict voter identification laws, disenfranchising people with felony convictions, purging registered voters from voter lists, closing polling locations, and failing to provide required language assistance. In Southern states, these barriers are layered on top of the legacy of Jim Crow, which as our colleague Jhacova Williams demonstrates in her research, continues to stifle rates of black voter registration today.

The coronavirus pandemic creates additional barriers, asking voters to choose between protecting their health and their right to participate in our democracy and compromising the health and safety of poll workers during presidential primary as well as state and local elections. Today, progress for fair and accessible election reforms remains mixed. In Kentucky, the legislature overrode a veto by the governor to create a new voter identification law at the worst possible time. On the other hand, Virginia policymakers have enacted the kinds of voting reforms necessary to strengthen democracy in the wake of the crisis.Virginia’s governor recently signed multiple bills that expanded early voting, repealed voter identification laws, made election day a holiday, expanded absentee voting, and implemented automatic voter registration.

Southern state policymakers and election officials have taken some useful steps to protect public health and limit the spread of the coronavirus by postponing elections. For example, though most states in the South have already had their presidential primary elections, officials in states such as Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, and West Virginia delayed theirs until June. The North Carolina Board of Elections and Mississippi Governor Reeves postponed congressional runoff elections, and other officials in Alabama, Oklahoma, and Texas postponed local elections. In Oklahoma, the secretary of state will identify a new deadline for collecting ballot initiative signatures once the governor indicates that the state’s emergency declaration is over.

Tagged Coronavirus Voting access

Posted April 17, 2020 at 11:25 am by Emma García, Elaine Weiss, and Lora Engdahl

Access to online learning amid coronavirus is far from universal, and children who are poor suffer from a digital divide

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers, parents, school districts, and communities are doing their best to replace in-person with online learning. But as a recent Washington Post article notes, the move to e-learning prompted by school closures has “exposed the technology divides”—with K–12 students who lack the resources they now need to learn at home facing long-term academic disadvantages.

Although the Post article focused on the digital divide in the District of Columbia, this is a national problem.

EPI analysis of data from the most comprehensive study of primary and secondary education in the country illustrates a widespread digital divide based on family income. The data, from the National Center for Education Statistics’ National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for eighth-graders, show that full access to online learning is far from universal and that students who are poor are less likely to have access to the key tools and experiences they need to attend school online. For example, nearly 16% of eighth-graders overall, and almost a quarter of eighth-graders who are poor, don’t have a desktop or laptop computer at home on which to follow their classes. About 8% of eighth-graders who are not poor lack access to these essential devices. The data also show that low shares of students have teachers with full technological proficiency to teach online. (Poor students are defined as students who are eligible for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program.)

Not all students are set up for online learning and students who are poor have less access to key tools: Share of eighth-graders with access to tool for online learning, by income level, 2017



All students	95.8%
Non-poor	98.4%
Poor	93.0%

All students	84.4%
Non-poor	92.3%
Poor	76.3%

All students	76.3%
Non-poor	81.8%
Poor	70.6%

All students	51.3%
Non-poor	56.1%
Poor	46.4%

All students	43.4%
Non-poor	45.0%
Poor	41.7%


All students	69.2%
Non-poor	71.4%
Poor	66.8%

All students	32.5%
Non-poor	32.5%
Poor	32.6%

All students	19.3%
Non-poor	18.3%
Poor	20.3%

ChartData Download data

Notes: Poor students are students eligible for the federal free or reduced-price lunch programs. Non-poor students are students who are ineligible for those programs. Frequent use of internet at home for homework means every day or almost every day. Students’ teachers were either “already proficient” in, “have not” received training in, or “had received training” in “software applications” and “integrating computers into instruction” in the last two years.

Source: 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), eighth-grade reading sample microdata from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics

Posted April 16, 2020 at 5:28 pm by Monique Morrissey

A coronavirus recovery: How to ensure older workers fully participate

Key takeaways:

Because older workers are more likely to be unemployed for long periods, have work-limiting disabilities, and live in areas of the country that were struggling even before the crisis, policies aimed at addressing these problems will especially benefit these workers.
While infrastructure spending could help jump-start the post-pandemic recovery, policies must ensure that older workers participate in training and jobs programs related to these investments.
Regulatory protections for front-line workers, especially older workers and others at heightened risk for contracting or suffering serious consequences from contagious diseases, need to be strengthened and updated using lessons learned from the pandemic.
Employer-provided benefits result in spotty coverage and higher costs for older workers. The United States should catch up to other countries and provide sick leave, paid family leave, and health insurance through government programs rather than leaving these to the discretion of employers.

(See the companion blog post outlining steps needed to protect vulnerable older workers in the economic collapse caused by measures needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Once the worst of the outbreak is over and social distancing measures are relaxed, policies to help older workers will be needed to ensure they share in the recovery.

Deficit-financed stimulus spending—needed to quickly bring the economy back to something approaching full employment—will help but not ensure broad-based prosperity. Policymakers also need to address power imbalances between employers and workers and target policies at disadvantaged workers, including unemployed older workers.

Older workers, as I discussed in my last blog post, may find it harder to get back in the job market after layoffs for a number of reasons. They may have health conditions that limit what they can do or they may feel forced to accept large pay cuts because some skills and knowledge they’ve built up aren’t transferable and may be undervalued by prospective employers. Absent policies to help these workers regain their footing, they may become “discouraged workers” who give up on the job search and retire before they’re ready to.

This post lays out a series of policies to address barriers to employment for unemployed older workers and to protect older workers from health and financial risks.

Posted April 16, 2020 at 1:28 pm by Julia Wolfe

Updated state unemployment numbers remain astonishingly high: Six states saw record-high levels of initial unemployment claims last week

This morning, the Department of Labor released the latest initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims data, showing that another five million people (not seasonally adjusted) filed for UI last week. In the last four weeks, more than 20 million workers—whose economic security has been upended by the coronavirus crisis and inadequate policy responses—filed for UI.

Last week, Colorado, New York, South Carolina, Connecticut, Mississippi, and West Virginia saw their highest level of initial UI claim filings ever. These six states, along with Florida, Missouri, and North Carolina, saw increases in initial filings compared with the prior week.

Most states had fewer initial UI claims last week than in the week prior, but the number of UI claims remained astonishingly high. California and Michigan—the two states with the largest decline since the week before—still had 661,000 and 219,000 claims filed last week, respectively—the third-highest week on record for both.

Figure A compares UI claims filed last week with filings in the pre-virus period, showing once again that Southern states are faring particularly poorly. Seven of the 10 states that had the highest percent change last week relative to the pre-virus period are Southern: Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Alabama.

Figure A

Initial unemployment insurance claims filed during the week ending April 11, by state

State	Initial claims filed	Percent change from the prior week	Level change from prior week	Percent change from pre-virus period	Level change from pre-virus period	Sum of initial claims for the five weeks ending April 11
Alabama	91,079	-14.7%	-15,660	4221%	88,971	291,513
Alaska	12,752	-12.6%	-1,838	1410%	11,908	50,083
Arizona	97,784	-26.2%	-34,644	2878%	94,501	352,344
Arkansas	34,635	-44.2%	-27,451	2241%	33,156	135,134
California	660,966	-28.1%	-257,848	1517%	620,094	2,882,044
Colorado	105,073	126.8%	58,747	5418%	103,169	235,332
Connecticut	33,962	1.5%	498	1216%	31,381	129,193
Delaware	13,272	-29.6%	-5,579	2224%	12,701	62,508
Washington D.C.	9,904	-35.4%	-5,425	2079%	9,450	56,777
Florida	181,293	6.7%	11,408	3478%	176,226	660,438
Georgia	317,526	-18.6%	-72,606	5831%	312,173	859,063
Hawaii	34,693	-34.7%	-18,408	2955%	33,557	146,794
Idaho	17,817	-42.3%	-13,087	1518%	16,716	96,279
Illinois	141,049	-29.8%	-59,992	1402%	131,658	645,495
Indiana	118,184	-6.9%	-8,826	4611%	115,676	446,719
Iowa	46,356	-27.8%	-17,838	1887%	44,023	209,697
Kansas	30,769	-37.6%	-18,537	1808%	29,156	159,723
Kentucky	115,763	-1.5%	-1,812	4527%	113,261	398,295
Louisiana	80,045	-20.4%	-20,576	4648%	78,359	352,759
Maine	13,273	-57.1%	-17,637	1610%	12,497	90,046
Maryland	60,823	-44.4%	-48,666	2103%	58,063	302,474
Massachusetts	103,040	-26.2%	-36,607	1601%	96,982	580,011
Michigan	219,320	-43.6%	-169,234	3870%	213,796	1,045,553
Minnesota	89,634	-18.7%	-20,626	2447%	86,115	428,772
Mississippi	46,160	0.7%	308	5477%	45,332	130,693
Missouri	95,785	4.7%	4,327	3053%	92,747	337,796
Montana	13,437	-36.7%	-7,807	1620%	12,656	71,610
Nebraska	16,391	-39.4%	-10,663	3125%	15,883	84,665
Nevada	60,180	-24.1%	-19,105	2509%	57,873	310,061
New Hampshire	23,936	-38.9%	-15,266	4142%	23,372	124,537
New Jersey	140,600	-34.6%	-74,236	1619%	132,421	686,971
New Mexico	19,494	-25.4%	-6,638	2652%	18,786	92,449
New York	395,949	15.0%	51,498	2048%	377,519	1,201,266
North Carolina	137,934	0.4%	512	5263%	135,362	545,117
North Dakota	10,378	-31.4%	-4,747	2374%	9,959	43,398
Ohio	157,218	-30.5%	-68,973	2054%	149,918	861,052
Oklahoma	48,977	-19.1%	-11,557	3076%	47,435	181,017
Oregon	50,930	-18.9%	-11,858	1182%	46,958	195,539
Pennsylvania	238,357	-14.1%	-39,283	1788%	225,736	1,313,564
Rhode Island	22,805	-19.3%	-5,438	1931%	21,682	115,803
South Carolina	87,686	1.3%	1,113	4409%	85,742	274,653
South Dakota	6,152	-24.4%	-1,986	3276%	5,970	23,042
Tennessee	74,772	-33.3%	-37,414	3620%	72,762	320,237
Texas	273,567	-13.2%	-41,600	2009%	260,596	1,036,521
Utah	24,171	-26.8%	-8,869	2314%	23,170	106,738
Vermont	9,478	-42.5%	-6,996	1440%	8,863	45,028
Virginia	106,723	-27.6%	-40,646	3940%	104,082	415,572
Washington	150,516	-12.1%	-20,736	2379%	144,446	648,766
West Virginia	14,595	0.7%	101	1192%	13,465	48,013
Wisconsin	69,884	-33.3%	-34,939	1136%	64,230	341,862
Wyoming	4,904	-25.0%	-1,639	885%	4,406	22,013

Notes: Initial claims for the week ending April 11 reflect advance state claims, not seasonally adjusted. For comparisons with the “pre-virus period,” we use a four-week average of initial claims for the weeks ending February 15–March 7, 2020.

Source: U.S. Employment and Training Administration, Initial Claims [ICSA], retrieved from Department of Labor (DOL), https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf and https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims.asp, April 16, 2020

Posted April 16, 2020 at 10:17 am by Ben Zipperer and Josh Bivens

9.2 million workers likely lost their employer-provided health insurance in the past four weeks

These estimates were updated on May 14, 2020. See the updated estimates.

We estimate that 9.2 million workers were at high risk of losing their employer-provided health insurance in the past four weeks. To avoid prohibitively costly insurance options, the federal government should fund an expansion of Medicare and Medicaid to all those suffering job losses during the pandemic period.

Two weeks ago, when the two-week total of unemployment insurance (UI) initial claims was 8.7 million, we estimated that 3.5 million workers may have lost their health insurance at work. Since then, 11.4 million more workers filed claims for unemployment benefits, bringing the total of UI initial claims over the last four weeks to 20.1 million, currently the most comprehensive measure of the extent of job losses and furloughs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

We estimate that across all industries where workers have filed UI claims, about 45.7% of workers had their own health insurance provided through their employer. As a result, of the 20.1 million workers who filed initial UI claims in the last four weeks, 9.2 million may have lost coverage through their own employer-provided health insurance (EPHI).

The analysis, described below, combines industry-specific UI claims data for 11 states, representing about 20% of national employment, with national, industry-specific health insurance coverage rates. Using these data, we provide a rough prediction of 9.2 million workers losing EPHI. We can’t say exactly how many people will lose insurance coverage altogether for several reasons. For example, some workers who lose EPHI due to layoffs or hours reductions that trigger UI claims may be able to obtain coverage through health care exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or through Medicaid. Some of this group may also be able to obtain continuing coverage through COBRA, paying out of pocket the full cost of their EPHI coverage. Some workers may be able to obtain coverage through other family members, or if only experiencing a temporary furlough or hours reduction, their employers might continue to pay for coverage. On the other hand, our calculations might understate the loss of health insurance coverage because they do not account for family members who are no longer covered because of the policyholder’s layoff. And, because not all layoffs result in UI claims, we will underestimate the actual magnitude of job losses.

Tagged Coronavirus Health

Posted April 15, 2020 at 6:12 pm by Elise Gould, Ben Zipperer, and Jori Kandra

Women have been hit hard by the coronavirus labor market: Their story is worse than industry-based data suggest

Key findings:

The latest payroll employment data for March show that women were the hardest hit by initial job losses in the COVID-19 labor market; women represented 50.0% of payroll employment in February, but represented 58.8% of job losses in March.
If women’s share of new unemployment insurance (UI) claims in recent weeks was driven solely by sector-level differences in gender composition, then they would have accounted for roughly 45% of new UI claims, or about 6.8 million new claims.
However, relying solely on the gender composition of sectoral unemployment may lead to an underestimate of new UI claims that were filed by women. Using three states that provide direct estimates of the gender composition of new UI claims shows that the female share of these claims is substantially higher than what we estimate by using only the sectoral composition of employment by gender.
We estimate that once the overrepresentation of women in sectors with new layoffs is corrected for, between 7.8 and 8.4 million women filed for unemployment insurance in the three weeks ending April 4.

Since March 15, 15.1 million workers in the United States have filed for unemployment insurance. Tomorrow, the latest initial unemployment insurance claims will be released by the Department of Labor for the week ending April 11, and estimates suggest that there could be another 4.5 million initial claims reported. These top-line numbers are vital for understanding what is going on in the economy and the extent of the economic insecurity millions of workers and their families are experiencing. But what is less clear is who these workers are and where they work. While national statistics that directly report the demographic characteristics of UI claimants will not be available for months, we use national employment data from March and preliminary state UI reports through April to begin to answer those questions. We find that job losses and furloughs have disproportionately affected women. This is the result of two factors: Women are more concentrated in sectors that experienced more job loss, and women also tended to see more job loss than men within these sectors.

Posted April 15, 2020 at 2:30 pm by Daniel Costa

New survey and report reveals mistreatment of H-2A farmworkers is common: The coronavirus puts them further at risk

The irony should be lost on no one that NPR’s reporting on the Trump administration’s push to lower wages for H-2A farmworkers came out the same week that a new report was published by Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM) that calls into question whether the H-2A temporary work visa program should exist at all without major reforms to protect migrant workers.

The report details the findings of in-depth interviews with 100 H-2A workers, who “reported discrimination, sexual harassment, wage theft, and health and safety violations by their employers—and a chilling lack of recourse.” Every single H-2A worker “experienced at least one serious legal violation of their rights, and 94% experienced three or more.” And before they had even arrived in the United States, many were already heavily in debt as a result of paying illegal recruitment fees in exchange for the opportunity to work in a low-wage farm job.

Posted April 14, 2020 at 4:55 pm by Celine McNicholas and Margaret Poydock

The Trump administration has weakened crucial worker protections needed to combat the coronavirus: Agencies tasked with protecting workers have put them in danger

Key takeaways:

The Department of Labor (DOL) issued a temporary rule that will exempt 96% of applicable firms from providing paid sick and paid family and medical leave to their staff. It could also exempt 9 million health care workers and 4.4 million first responders from receiving paid leave.
DOL issued guidance that narrows the eligibility of workers to receive Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). For example, gig workers must be “forced to suspend operations” by a government quarantine in order to receive PUA benefits, rather than voluntarily quarantining themselves.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued guidance that will jeopardize the health and safety of workers. The CDC now allows essential workers to continue to work even if they may have been exposed to the coronavirus—as long as they appear to be asymptomatic and the employer implements additional precautions.
The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) advises that certain businesses are not required to investigate or record workplace-related coronavirus cases. Not only does this guidance make workers less safe, it will likely make the public health crisis worse as employers will not be required to record virus-related illness as officials work to track these cases.

In the last three weeks, an unprecedented 17 million workers applied for unemployment insurance (UI), while millions more risk their lives to provide essential services. To mitigate the health and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, Congress has passed a series of bills aimed at providing relief and recovery measures. The Families First Coronavirus Relief Act (FFRCA) and the CARES Act included critical provisions to assist workers impacted by the pandemic; chief among those are an expansion of Unemployment Insurance (UI) and access to paid leave. However, rather than working to implement these relief and recovery bills efficiently and effectively, the Trump administration has instead looked for ways to narrow and weaken the worker protections included in the legislation.

Posted April 14, 2020 at 3:42 pm by Daniel Costa

Trump administration looking to cut the already low wages of H-2A migrant farmworkers while giving their bosses a multibillion-dollar bailout

Key takeaways:

The Trump administration, which recently deemed farmworkers essential to the economy, is considering lowering the wages of the 205,000 migrant farmworkers employed in the United States through the H-2A temporary work visa program, according to published reports.
H-2A wages are usually based on a mandated wage standard that varies by region—known as the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR)—aiming to prevent temporary migrant farmworkers from being underpaid according to local standards and to prevent downward pressure on the wages of farmworkers in the United States.
Farmworkers in general are paid very low wages—in 2019 they earned $13.99 per hour, which is only three-fifths of what production and nonsupervisory workers outside of agriculture earned, and they earned less than what workers with lowest levels of education in the U.S. labor market earned.
The national average AEWR wage, at $12.96 per hour, was lower than wages for any of these groups of workers, and many H-2A farmworkers earned far less in some of the biggest H-2A states.
The Trump administration may try to lower the wages of H-2A farmworkers through the regulatory process or a provision attached to a broader piece of legislation.
This comes at a time when farm owners looking to cut their workers’ wages are on the verge of receiving a federal bailout worth at least $16 billion, which will help cover potential financial losses related to impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Last week, NPR reported that “new White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is working with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to see how to reduce wage rates for foreign guest workers on American farms.” Apparently, the Trump administration believes that temporary migrant farmworkers—who earned between $11.01 and $15.03 per hour in 2019—are overpaid.

Why should migrant farmworkers have to take a pay cut, especially right now, when farmers and ranchers are about to receive at least $16 billion in direct payments thanks to a federal bailout?

Posted April 14, 2020 at 1:16 pm by Richard Rothstein

The coronavirus will explode achievement gaps in education

This blog post was originally posted on shelterforce.org.

The COVID-19 pandemic will take existing academic achievement differences between middle-class and low-income students and explode them.

The academic achievement gap has bedeviled educators for years. In math and reading, children of college-educated parents score on average at about the 60th percentile, while children whose parents have only a high school diploma score, on average, at the 35th percentile.* The academic advantages of children whose parents have master’s degrees and beyond are even greater.

To a significant extent, this is a neighborhood issue—schools are more segregated today than at any time in the last 50 years, mostly because the neighborhoods in which they are located are so segregated. Schools with concentrated populations of children affected by serious socioeconomic problems are able to devote less time and attention to academic instruction.

In 2001 we adopted the “No Child Left Behind Act,” assuming that these disparities mostly stemmed from schools’ failure to take seriously a responsibility to educate African American, Hispanic, and lower-income students. Supporters claimed that holding educators accountable for test results would soon eliminate the achievement gap. Promoted by liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, the theory was ludicrous, and the law failed to fulfill its promise. The achievement gap mostly results from social-class based advantages that some children bring to school and that others lack, as well as disadvantages stemming from racial discrimination that only some children have to face.

The coronavirus, unfortunately, will only exacerbate the effects of these advantages.

Posted April 13, 2020 at 2:33 pm by Celine McNicholas

Congress should immediately pass legislation protecting workers’ safety during the coronavirus pandemic

Key takeaways:

Working people should not have to wait for a fourth recovery bill for vital, lifesaving protections, while corporations have received $450 billion in aid with no strings attached.
The federal government should take on the role of “payroll of last resort,” as some other nations have done, in order to keep working people on the payroll with access to health care.
The “phase four” recovery bill should contain enhanced protections for all workers performing essential work during this crisis, such as providing personal protective equipment, hazard pay, whistleblower protections, and bolstered collective bargaining rights.

Since March 8, Congress has passed three bills allocating trillions of dollars to relief and recovery measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic. These bills included some important provisions for workers hurt by the pandemic. Chief among those are funding for expanded unemployment insurance, increased access to paid sick leave for some workers, and funding for the airline industry to keep paying workers and covering their benefits. However, direct aid to workers was a small percentage of the overall funding in these relief and recovery measures. Much of the money included in these bills went directly to corporate interests. For example, the CARES Act included $450 billion in aid to impacted firms with virtually no strings attached. Instead of requiring firms receiving this bailout money to maintain pre-pandemic payroll levels, wages, and benefits, the language in the bill requires that such worker protections be provided “to the greatest extent practicable.” This is toothless language that does not require employers to use this taxpayer money to keep workers employed.

The airline industry relief funding was the only example of financial assistance with a serious string attached—requiring relief funds to be used explicitly for the “continuation of payment of employee wages, salaries, and benefits.” However, the Trump administration seems to be playing politics with the implementation of this program. It is unfortunate if not unpredictable that the sole program that provided a subsidy for workers’ wages and benefits is now the source of a political battle that jeopardizes its efficacy.

Posted April 13, 2020 at 1:02 pm by Owen E. Herrnstadt

A comprehensive U.S. manufacturing policy is needed now more than ever

Twelve years ago, we warned that:

These warnings could not be more relevant today as we experience devastating disruptions in our supply chains across virtually every industry sector due to the growing COVID-19 crisis. Essential medical supplies are impacted as we struggle to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.S. commercial industrial base is particularly threatened by excessive reliance on outsourcing without regard to possible downsides. Aerospace, which contributes heavily to gross domestic product (GDP) with almost 500,000 U.S. jobs, has been outsourcing production for many years to repeated protests from the Machinists Union, among others. Fifty years ago, U.S. commercial airplanes were mostly produced in the U.S. Now, a much larger percentage of aircraft is outsourced—with an estimated 70% of the Boeing 787 production being outsourced.

Of course, it is not just aerospace and related products that are outsourced. The U.S. shipbuilding and repair industry has declined dramatically, along with other fundamental industries like machine tools. We are now more dependent on other countries for these items—along with countless others—than ever before.

Tagged Coronavirus Manufacturing

Posted April 13, 2020 at 11:49 am by Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman

Do Black economists matter?: The media erasure of Black economic voices hurts the communities hardest hit by the pandemic and society at large

The voices of Black economists have been largely absent from the recent media coronavirus coverage. Over the past month, for example, The New York Times, which has become one of the primary sources for economic insights about the pandemic, published 29 articles between opinion editorials and The Upshot mentioning the words “economist” and “coronavirus” between March 9 and April 9. Out of the 29 articles listed, just one was authored by a Black journalist, and only three addressed the racial inequities with respect to COVID-19. Given the high demand for economists’ insights, between the opinion page and The Upshot, 42 economists were either cited or co-authoring a piece. Among the 42, not a single Black economist was cited or was a contributor to an article despite the fact that some are addressing mobile payments to workers, solutions to the widening racial-wealth gap, and the pandemic’s impact on marginalized communities.

Black economists have long been ignored by the economics profession and media. Sadie T.M. Alexander, the first African American economist, could not practice after she earned a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1921 because of racism and sexism. And recently, the American Economic Association began addressing its race problem beginning with a professional climate survey that showed a 56-percentage-point-difference between Blacks and non-Blacks with respect to feeling that race was respected in the profession and nearly half of Black respondents cited that they felt discriminated against because of race. One respondent went so far as to share that they would not recommend their Black children go into economics and that they made a mistake in choosing the field.

This is not the first crisis in which Black economists have been ignored by their colleagues and the media. Before the 2008 financial downturn, Black communities were experiencing early signs of waning unemployment and housing market devastation with respect to subprime loans and predatory lenders. William Spriggs, an economist at Howard University, told Quartz that underrepresented minority economists noticed these trends early on but their notes of alarm were barely amplified and were, quite frankly, ignored. Janet Yellen, former Chair of the Federal Reserve Board has since gone on record to recognize how the lack of diversity at the Board contributed to the severity of the crisis and the ineffectual nature of responses to it. The problem hasn’t gotten better, however. The Federal Reserve Board has hired only one Black woman out of its team of 406 economists, which is why there was a slew of coverage about its lack of diversity in 2019.

Posted April 10, 2020 at 5:29 pm by Monique Morrissey

Relief efforts need to do more to protect older workers in a coronavirus economic shutdown

Key takeaways:

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, signed into law last month, and earlier policy responses to the pandemic are steps in the right direction but don’t do enough to protect workers, including older workers, who are at much greater risk from COVID-19.
Older workers who lose their jobs face harsh consequences. They have less time to make up for lost earnings and savings before retirement. Many have trouble being hired and retire before they’re ready. They’re often forced to accept large pay cuts because some skills and knowledge they’ve built up aren’t transferable and may be undervalued by prospective employers.
While older workers are less likely to work in the hard-hit leisure and hospitality industries, many are employed in other sectors and occupations that could see large job losses, including public-sector occupations.
Expanding access to paid sick and family leave is critical to the safety and well-being of older workers and their families, as are stronger health and safety protections for workers.
The CARES Act makes some necessary changes to paid leave and unemployment insurance programs, but these reforms need to be made permanent or automatically extended as long as economic conditions warrant.
Older workers with inadequate health and safety protections who stop working because they’re at higher risk of serious consequences from COVID-19 should be eligible for paid leave and unemployment benefits.
Work-sharing programs that encourage employers to reduce hours rather than resort to layoffs would especially help older workers.

(This is part one of a two-part series of posts on the impact of the coronavirus on older workers and what needs to be done to mitigate the economic shock to this group.)

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, signed into law last month, and earlier policy responses to the pandemic are steps in the right direction but don’t do enough to protect workers, including older workers, who are at much greater risk from COVID-19.

Older workers ages 65 and older, though not those ages 55–64, are less likely to be able to work from home than most other workers; only workers ages 15–24 are less able to telecommute. These older workers—many of whom are on the front lines—are at much higher risk of dying or suffering serious consequences from COVID-19 than their younger counterparts.

Personal care aides are among the low-paid and high-risk occupations with a disproportionate share of older workers (personal care aides are also overwhelmingly women and disproportionately people of color and immigrants). Older workers are also somewhat more likely than their younger counterparts to be employed in hospitals and nursing homes. (Unless otherwise noted, all references to older workers’ employment shares are based on the author’s analysis of 2015–2017 American Community Survey microdata for workers ages 55–64.)

The federal response to the pandemic has so far done little to protect the health of older workers and others facing greater risk from exposure to the virus, who are faced with a daily choice between risking their lives and losing their livelihoods. Low-paid workers in particular are not only less able to work from home, they’re also more likely to rely on public transportation and share close living quarters, heightening the risk of contagion for themselves and their families.

Tagged Coronavirus Older workers

Posted April 10, 2020 at 8:30 am by Celine McNicholas and Jhacova Williams

The next coronavirus relief package must include funding to safeguard our democracy: Voting by mail and online voting must be considered

An essential component of any “phase four” coronavirus relief and recovery package must be additional investments to protect our right to vote. Lawmakers must act now to establish safe, alternative voting methods—like vote-by-mail and online voting—especially before November’s general election.

The CARES Act included $400 million in “election security grants” to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the coronavirus domestically for the 2020 federal election cycle. This is far less than fair election advocates argued was necessary to protect our elections during the pandemic. The Brennan Center for Justice, for example, released a plan calling for a $2 billion investment to ensure that the 2020 election is free, fair, accessible, and secure.

As more states explore alternative ways of casting ballots, Congress must provide resources responsive to the magnitude of the challenge. A failure to provide sufficient investments to safeguard elections is the most successful effort at voter suppression and disenfranchisement since the expansion of the franchise. We must demand investment in our democracy infrastructure and more voting options.

Tagged Coronavirus Voting access

Posted April 9, 2020 at 5:37 pm by Julia Wolfe and Hunter Blair

States continue to see record-high levels of initial unemployment insurance claims, including in the South

Key takeaways:

Twenty-eight states had record numbers of unemployment insurance (UI) filings last week. The remaining states had their record high in one of the previous two weeks.
California, Georgia, Michigan, New York, and Texas had the most claims last week.
Southern states didn’t initially lose jobs as quickly as other states, because they were slow to implement social distancing measures. Now, however, they are experiencing this unprecedented job loss particularly acutely.
The federal government should take on the costs of keeping workers on the payroll and provide substantially more funding to state and local governments.

Another 6.6 million people filed initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims last week, continuing the upending of the labor market we have seen in response to the coronavirus pandemic. According to seasonally adjusted data released yesterday morning by the Department of Labor, over the last three weeks, 16.8 million—over one in 10—workers have filed for UI. As the labor market is disrupted, so are the lives of millions of workers across the country.

Last week, 28 states saw a record number of initial UI filings, with the rest of the states experiencing their high point during one of the prior two weeks. While many states saw a slight decline in UI claims compared with the prior week, the number of claims filed this week is still staggeringly high. In the four weeks between March 7 and April 4, over two million Californians and one million Pennsylvanians filed UI claims.

Posted April 9, 2020 at 11:59 am by Josh Bivens and Naomi Walker

At least $500 billion more in coronavirus aid is needed for state and local governments by the end of 2021

States and localities are already announcing severe budget shortfalls due to the coronavirus shock.
The recently passed CARES Act allocated $150 billion to help state and local governments respond to the coronavirus, but this amount does not come close to what’s needed.
We estimate that at least $500 billion more aid will be needed by the end of 2021 to prevent state and local budget cuts that hamper the economy after the public health crisis ends.

Congress has provided multiple rounds of relief to state and local governments in legislation responding to the economic shock of the coronavirus, but much more will be needed by these governments in coming years. We estimate that roughly $500 billion more will be needed by the end of 2021 to keep state and local governments from becoming a significant drag on economic recovery after the public health crisis passes.

The recently passed CARES Act allocated $150 billion to help state and local governments grapple with the costs of responding to COVID-19. But this amount does not come close to what is needed to address the severity and likely duration of the public health and economic crises. As economic activity has collapsed, it has triggered a dramatic downturn in state and local revenues even apart from new spending demands imposed by the coronavirus. Unlike the federal government, most state governments are required by law or constitution to balance their budgets. As revenues decline because of lower incomes and reduced spending, state and local governments face serious fiscal constraints, often leading to budget cuts that further depress demand in the economy.

Already, states and localities are announcing austerity measures and severe budget shortfalls exactly when public spending is most critical—both for protecting workers and for priming the economy for a rapid bounceback when the shutdown ends. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has proposed an across-the-board 20% budget cut; New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli estimated tax revenue would be between $4 billion and $7 billion below projections for fiscal year 2020; Arkansas’s projected revenue decline is more than double the size of the state’s reserves; and California is projected to spend down its sizable cash reserves in mere months, despite previously being on track to build the largest cash reserve in its history of more than $20 billion.

Local governments are announcing severe revenue shortfalls, too: This week, Arlington County, Virginia, announced a shortfall of $56 million for FY 2021, and cities like Seattle and New Orleans are each projecting shortfalls of at least $100 million this year.

Clearly, the aid to state and local governments passed so far is not sufficient, and we estimate that at least $500 billion will be needed by the end of 2021. Here’s how we got to this number.

Tagged Coronavirus

Posted April 8, 2020 at 2:57 pm by Caroline Fredrickson

The Wild West: Gig workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic lack basic worker protections

In the safety of our homes, those of us lucky enough to be healthy and have disposable income are searching websites for the best food delivery options, clicking on the pad thai and pizza choices that will soon arrive at our door. We wash our hands after touching the delivery bag and enjoy our dinner in front of the latest Hulu or Netflix binge offering. But what about the Uber Eats driver who dropped off the food? Not only are these workers exposed to customers and restaurant workers who might be sick with COVID-19, but these workers lack paid sick leave, health care, or unemployment protections through their employer because Uber—as well as so many other companies we depend on right now, such as Instacart, Lyft, and Amazon—classifies many of its workers as independent contractors not entitled to regular employee benefits.

Right under our noses, every day, these men and women toil without any of the basic job safety or security protections we take for granted. Independent contracting is the Wild West of the workplace. No law applies. None. While lately, Uber, Lyft, and Amazon have been in the news for filling a critical role in delivering supplies to a homebound nation, until recently news on their employment practices has focused on lawsuits accusing them of misclassifying their workers as independent contractors. California has even passed a law, AB5, that would make sure these workers are considered employees with full protections, but the gig employers are defying the law and spending tens of millions of dollars to repeal it in a November referendum. Some gig employers defend their practices as simply a byproduct of the “gig” economy and a natural development from the greater use of technology. But in reality, this is just an old dog doing a new trick: These workers are clearly employees. The same regime applies to many other workers we interact with every day, from janitors to manicurists and hairstylists.

When the New Deal laws were drafted, few could have imagined the creativity of the American employer. At its inception, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which requires a minimum wage and time-and-a-half overtime pay, was written to apply only to “employees,” because no one anticipated how that term would be manipulated. But the FLSA helped set in motion the legal contortions used by employers today, by giving companies an avenue to pay less than the minimum wage and avoid overtime pay by insisting that their workers are independent contractors, not employees.

Posted April 8, 2020 at 1:50 pm by Josh Bivens

How can the U.S. get more transformative with its coronavirus-shock response? With payroll guarantees and an economic ‘deep freeze’ plan.

Since March 8, Congress has passed three bills to provide resources for health care and economic relief and recovery in response to the shock of the coronavirus. Yet more remains to be done. We should continue to make marginal improvements on the existing framework of response, but we should also think about how to move our policy response closer to the international best practices established by other countries.

At the heart of those best practices are payroll guarantees and a willingness to “deep freeze” the economy.

Other nations have shown greater social solidarity and a much keener recognition of just how different the coronavirus shock is from previous recessions. In essence, the public health response to the coronavirus has mandated an economic “sudden stop.” The challenge is giving households and businesses resources to live on during the shutdown (relief), while making an economic bounceback once the all-clear sounds as fast as possible (recovery).

One key ingredient in fostering a rapid recovery is preserving labor market matches between workers and their employers and allowing employers to continue paying fixed nonlabor costs during the shutdown period.

Posted April 8, 2020 at 10:00 am by Julia Wolfe

Domestic workers are at risk during the coronavirus crisis: Data show most domestic workers are black, Hispanic, or Asian women

The coronavirus pandemic is placing the nation’s 2.2 million domestic workers—91.5% of whom are women—in a particularly precarious position. Steep declines in work are leading to a devastating loss of income while a lack of protective equipment for those who still work is a real threat to their health. This blog post provides details on who domestic workers are and where they live.

Domestic workers, whose worksites are private homes, have always faced unique challenges and have seen their work undervalued. In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, this already-vulnerable group is placed in a particularly precarious position. Many domestic workers are experiencing a steep decline in work. According to new data from the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), just over half (52%) of domestic workers surveyed said they had no job for the week beginning March 30—and that share increased to 68% by the next week. Domestic workers face long-term uncertainty, with 66% reporting that they are unsure if their clients will give them their jobs back after the pandemic. The decline in employment for domestic workers represents a significant loss of income for these workers and their families.

Domestic workers who are still on the front lines risk sacrificing their health for economic security. House cleaners—who help families follow the practices advocated by public health officials to help to prevent the spread of disease—and home care aides—who care for sick, disabled, and elderly people—may lack the protective equipment they need. Certain groups of domestic workers are excluded from basic labor protections, including those guaranteed under the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Family Medical Leave Act, which are particularly important sets of protections for workers in the midst of a pandemic.

Posted April 7, 2020 at 5:11 pm by Jhacova Williams and Kayla Blado

Wisconsin’s election during this pandemic shows that limiting voting options is the new form of voter suppression

In an unprecedented ruling Monday night, the United States Supreme Court voted to allow Wisconsin’s primary election to occur as scheduled, even as nearly a dozen other states have postponed their primaries due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Today, as voting is happening, Wisconsin has almost 2,500 reported cases of the coronavirus and is under a “safer at home” order that Democratic Governor Tony Evers issued on March 25. It orders Wisconsin residents to stay at home unless engaged in an essential activity.

After a lengthy battle between the state’s Democratic governor, the Republican-controlled legislature, and the judiciary branch on whether or not to postpone the election and extend absentee ballot deadlines, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision left Wisconsin voters with a difficult choice: stay safely at home or risk getting sick and waiting in long lines to exercise their fundamental right to vote.

This choice was particularly cruel for voters in Wisconsin’s largest and most diverse city, Milwaukee. There, so few poll workers signed up to work that the city was able to open only five polling locations, instead of the usual 180. In a city of around 600,000 residents, opening only a handful of polling locations led to extremely long lines that wrapped around city blocks and forced people to wait for hours.

Unfortunately, Milwaukee is used to this type of voter suppression.

Since 2011, Wisconsin has had one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country, requiring residents to have a current address on their identification. This disproportionately hurts voters in urban parts of the state, like Milwaukee County, which has one of the highest eviction rates in the state, making it harder for residents to keep a current address on their ID. In fact, research by the University of Wisconsin found that 17,000 Wisconsin voters were kept from the polls in 2016 because of the strict voter ID law.

Posted April 7, 2020 at 9:02 am by Josh Bivens, Celine McNicholas, and Heidi Shierholz

A ‘phase four’ relief and recovery package should provide economic assistance to state and local governments, extended unemployment benefits, and better protections for workers and jobs

A “phase four” coronavirus recovery and relief package must be passed quickly and must be sufficient in scope and magnitude to address the severity of the economic and public health crisis we are experiencing. The package must include:

More aid to state and local governments
Extended unemployment insurance benefits
Another direct cash payment to households
Better protection for workers and jobs
Full funding for coronavirus testing, treatment, and front-line worker personal protective equipment (PPE)

In the last two weeks, nearly 10 million people applied for unemployment insurance. The March jobs report revealed a loss of 701,000 jobs—the first monthly job loss in nearly 10 years and already one of the worst monthly losses on record. Further, March’s job loss numbers are just the tip of the iceberg, as they do not capture the entire month of March, but refer only to the payroll period containing March 12, before the shutdowns accelerated significantly.

How policymakers respond now will determine the level of pain working families experience and the speed at which the economy can get back on track after the shutdown period is over. The relief and recovery packages passed since the crisis began included many good measures, but they are still too little and some provisions in these packages represent policy missteps. More relief and recovery aid will certainly be needed.

The biggest misstep taken in the earlier relief and recovery packages was allocating so much of the aid to financial rescues of large firms with insufficient conditions to ensure that jobs and wages of workers were saved. Policymakers approved over $450 billion in direct fiscal aid to this effort, with more potentially forthcoming in subsidized loans from the Federal Reserve. Yet this aid (apart from the stronger stipulations for the airline industry) is largely not tied to preserving rank-and-file workers on payrolls.

Another large tranche of aid ($350 billion) was better targeted in preserving the payroll of small firms. But this aid will likely underperform in actually saving jobs because the administrative capacity of the Small Business Administration and banks servicing small and medium-sized firms are too poor to ensure the full amount of aid reaches employers and preserves payroll.

These two tranches of aid could have been bundled and made into more direct and better administered financial relief that hinged entirely on the willingness of employers to preserve workers on payroll with the federal government financing their pay during the shutdown. This would have allowed workers to remain in the jobs they held before the coronavirus shock, and this would have helped ensure a rapid economic recovery once the public health crisis had subsided.

Tagged Coronavirus Recession/stimulus

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