It is the 32nd week since millions of Americans began applying for unemployment benefits because of pandemic-induced layoffs as authorities tried to reduce the spread of the deadly coronavirus. For the week that ended October 24, the Department of Labor reported Thursday, 751,000 newly jobless workers filed for state unemployment insurance and 360,000 filed for federal benefits under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, for a total of 1.1 million. That’s down 25,000 from the previous week. The PUC covers free-lancers and other self-employed people who aren’t eligible for benefits under the state programs.
Although filings are nothing now like the millions who filed each week for five weeks straight in March and April, initial applications for state or federal benefits are continuing currently at more than four times the weekly average in the five years before the pandemic struck. And there’s a dark cloud approaching.
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Workers who haven’t been employed since the pandemic got underway in early March are nearing the end of their allowed benefits. Most states provide 26 weeks of unemployment insurance, and the federal government has added 13 weeks to that. Without further government action, that means millions will start running out of benefits right before the year-end holidays.
That obviously will exacerbate financial difficulties for individuals and families already having a tough time keeping food on the table and facing eviction because they can’t come up with rent or mortgage payments. Indeed, federal authorities estimate that when federal and local eviction moratoriums expire at the end of the year or soon afterward the potential tally of Americans who could be put on the street is 30-40 million. That’s a count calling for several exclamation points. The 10 million range contained in that estimate illustrates how the uniqueness and volatility of the Pandemic Recession make some calculations far from exact.
Without massive relief the economy could be headed for a deeper plunge than we saw in the spring.