Another 1.5M file for unemployment, 44M in pandemic
New weekly Illinois claims level off at just under 50k
More than 44 million U.S. workers have filed for unemployment benefits in the COVID-19 pandemic. (Shutterstock)
By Ted Cox
Another 1.5 million jobless U.S. workers filed for unemployment last week, bringing the total to 44 million since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in March.
The weekly unemployment report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor found 1.5 million workers nationwide filing for benefits last week. It was another new low since 3.3 million filed in mid-March and a record 6.9 million filed the last full week of March, and it was down from 1.9 million the week before, but it was still more than double the previous record of 695,000 in a week set during the 1982 recession, and it brought the total number of new claims filed in the pandemic to more than 44 million.
As national claims continued to drop, Illinois jobless claims leveled off. According to the Labor Department, 44,814 filed for unemployment benefits statewide last week, down slightly from 46,385 the week before, and claims filed by so-called gig workers for expanded benefits under the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program also declined slightly from 9,792 to 9,064.
The department reported: “The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 14.4 percent for the week ending May 30, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point from the previous week's revised rate. The previous week's rate was revised down by 0.2 from 14.8 to 14.6 percent.”
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated the national unemployment rate at 13.3 percent for May, but The New York Times is among those pointing out that is based on surveys in which some idled laborers have said they’re not looking to return to work during the pandemic, and if those workers were included the rate would be closer to 18 percent.
The Inequality.org website, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies, released its weekly Billionaire Bonanza 2020 report Thursday charging that, while 44.1 million U.S. workers were filing for unemployment since mid-March, billionaires boosted by a rebounding stock market were seeing their wealth grow by $637 billion, an increase of more than 20 percent overall.