Another 3M file for unemployment

Illinois claims stay level, but 36.5M have lost jobs nationally over eight weeks of COVID-19 pandemic

A crowd estimated at 20,000 rallies for jobs in Chicago’s Grant Park in the midst of the Great Depression just ahead of the 1932 general election. (Shutterstock)

By Ted Cox

Another 3 million U.S. workers filed for unemployment last week, making 36.5 million who have lost their jobs nationally over the last eight weeks of the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday that 2,981,000 idled workers filed for benefits last week, the lowest figure since the record-breaking 3.3 million who filed in mid-March as the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. But in between another new record was set with 6.9 million filing for unemployment the last full week of March, and overall the eight-week total was estimated at 36.5 million.

Job losses have yet to approach even the previous record of 695,000 claims in a week set during the 1982 recession.

Even as Gov. Pritzker urged independent contractors, freelancers, and so-called gig workers to file for expanded federally funded benefits last week, Illinois claims declined slightly to 72,993, down from 74,476 the week before. Those expanded benefits, known as Pandemic Unemployment Assistance in the congressional COVID-19 relief package that approved them, took effect this week in Illinois, with the governor saying that 50,000 idled workers had successfully filed for them on the first day on Monday.

According to the Labor Department, “the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 15.7 percent for the week ending May 2, an increase of 0.3 percentage point from the previous week's revised rate.” Last Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that April unemployment stood at 14.7 percent after the economy lost more than 20 million jobs in the month.