Another 6.6M file for unemployment
New one-week Illinois claims caused by coronavirus economic shutdown top 200,000
A 1973 march for jobs along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. (Wikimedia Commons/John White)
By Ted Cox
Another 6.6 million U.S. workers filed for unemployment last week, and Illinois saw new claims rise past 200,000 in the latest weekly jobless report issued Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor.
According to the Labor Department, last week’s new claims were actually down nationally about 261,000 after the previous week’s figure was revised up from 6,648,000 to 6,867,000. With 3.3 million people having filed the week before that, unemployment claims just over the last three weeks approached 17 million, driven of course by the economic shutdown prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Before the 3.3 million who filed three weeks ago, the previous national record was 695,000 new claims in a week, set in 1982 during the Reagan recession. Weekly claims records do not go back to the Great Depression, but analysts agree that not even in that collapse did claims rise as abruptly as they have in the COVID-19 crisis.
In Illinois, according to the Labor Department, 200,940 filed for unemployment benefits last week, up from 178,421 the week before and 114,114 the week before that. The department report said losses were heavy in service industries, including accommodation and food services and retail trade.
The Illinois Department of Unemployment Security has struggled to keep pace with those filing claims, and this week Gov. Pritzker advised those who’ve lost their jobs to be persistent and follow alphabetized time slots to file claims in order to not overwhelm the system, or to file in off hours.
Federal relief packages have attempted to stem job losses by offering incentives to businesses that furlough workers rather than laying them off entirely, thus allowing them to maintain health insurance. Just this week, a new study from the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign suggested that Illinois should make better use of a work-share program enacted in 2014 but never fully implemented by the Rauner administration. That would allow businesses to cut hours for employees, again permitting workers to keep their health insurance, while those workers would be eligible for prorated unemployment benefits.