The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released the most recent unemployment insurance (UI) claims data yesterday, showing that another 1.4 million people filed for regular UI benefits last week (not seasonally adjusted) and 1.0 million for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), the new program for workers who aren’t eligible for regular UI, such as gig workers. As of last week, more than 35 million people in the workforce are either receiving or have recently applied for unemployment benefits—regular or PUA.

Figure A and Table 1 show the total number of workers who either made it through at least the first round of regular state UI processing as of June 27 (these are known as “continued” claims) or filed initial regular UI claims during the week ending July 4. Three states had more than one million workers either receiving regular UI benefits or waiting for their claim to be approved: California (3.1 million), New York (1.7 million), and Texas (1.4 million). Seven additional states had more than half a million workers receiving or awaiting benefits.

While the largest U.S. states unsurprisingly have the highest numbers of UI claimants, some smaller states have larger shares of the workforce filing for unemployment. Figure A and Table 1 also show the numbers of workers in each state who are receiving or waiting for regular UI benefits as a share of the pre-pandemic labor force in February 2020. In four states and the District of Columbia, more than one in six workers are receiving regular UI benefits or waiting on their claim to be approved: Hawaii (19.7%), Nevada (19.3%), New York (17.8%), District of Columbia (17.6%), and Oregon (17.0%).

Read more

The coronavirus pandemic has created a severe budget crisis for state and local governments, as tax revenue has fallen precipitously at the same time that governments are facing extraordinary demands for public health and welfare supports. Because states are severely limited in how they can borrow, the only way to address this crisis is through Congress authorizing significant additional fiscal support to state and local governments. Without federal aid, many states will likely make devastating cuts to the services and staffing they provide, sending the country into a prolonged depression with 5.3 million jobs both public and private likely lost before the end of next year.

Failing to provide aid to state and local governments would be not only be an act of needless economic self-sabotage, it would also exacerbate racial and gender disparities. If state and local governments are forced to cut personnel, those cuts are likely to fall hardest on women and Black workers.

Historically, the public sector has been a key employer for women and people of color. During the Civil Rights era of the 1960s and 1970s, the federal government—through executive actions and legislation—adopted various anti-discrimination and affirmative action measures that boosted the employment of women and Black workers in government. Now, decades later, all state and local government jobs are subject to the federal regulations requiring equal opportunity, and some states and localities have additional affirmative action programs. Consequently, state and local government has generally achieved a more diverse workplace than the private sector.

Read more

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released the most recent unemployment insurance (UI) claims data yesterday, showing that another 1.5 million people filed for regular UI benefits last week (not seasonally adjusted) and 0.7 million for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), the new program for workers who aren’t eligible for regular UI, such as gig workers. As we look at the aggregate measures of economic harm, it is important to remember that this recession is deepening racial inequalities. Black communities are suffering more from this pandemic—both physically and economically—as a result of, and in addition to, systemic racism and violence. Both Black and Hispanic workers are more likely than white workers to be worried about exposure to coronavirus at work and bringing it home to their families. These communities, and Black women in particular, should be centered in policy solutions.

As of last week, more than one in five people in the workforce are either receiving or have recently applied for unemployment benefits—regular or PUA. These benefits are a critical lifeline that help workers make ends meet while practicing the necessary social distancing to stop the spread of coronavirus. In fact, the $600 increase in weekly UI benefits was likely the most effective measure in the CARES Act for insulating workers from economic harm and jump-starting an eventual economic rebound, and it should be extended past July.

To be clear, our top priority right now should be protecting the health and safety of workers and our broader communities. To accomplish this, we should be paying workers to stay home when possible, whether that means working from home some or all of the time, using paid leave, or claiming UI benefits. When workers are providing absolutely essential services, they must have access to adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and paid sick leave.

Read more

Congress passed the CARES Act in March to provide relief and recovery from the economic effects of the coronavirus. By far the best part of the CARES Act was a significant expansion of the unemployment insurance (UI) system, which included a $600 per week boost to UI benefits. Congress settled on a flat $600 top-up to weekly benefits because the antiquated state UI administrative capacity could not handle more tailored ways to increase UI benefit generosity, and giving everybody an extra $600 guaranteed that most workers would receive at least as much in UI benefits as they did from their previous employment.

In normal times, economists and policymakers have focused a lot of attention (almost surely too much) on the incentive effects of UI benefits. If these benefits were too generous, the worry was that this would blunt workers’ incentives to actively search for new jobs. The negative economic impacts of these incentive effects have always been exaggerated, but these effects become truly trivial during times when the economy’s growth is clearly constrained by insufficient aggregate demand (spending by households, businesses, and governments).

When growth is demand-constrained, there are more potential workers than available jobs, so hounding these potential workers into more intense job-searching by making UI benefits less generous doesn’t result in more jobs being created, it just results in more frustrated job searches. This logic became even more compelling during the first phase of the economic collapse caused by the coronavirus. Not only were there not enough jobs to employ willing workers, for public health reasons we didn’t want enough jobs to employ these workers, as the shutdown in economic activity and employment was the point of lockdown measures. Even as official lockdowns ease in coming months (often prematurely), jobs will be sharply constrained by demand, not workers’ incentives.

Read more