4.4 million more seek jobless aid

Five-week total tops 26 million

More than 4.4 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, according to the Labor Department, a signal that the tidal wave of job losses continues to grow during the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s the fifth-straight week that job losses were measured in the millions. Jobless figures on this scale haven’t been seen since the Great Depression.

The new weekly total comes on top of 22 million Americans who had sought benefits in previous weeks, a volume that has overwhelmed state systems for processing unemployment claims. Economists estimate that the national unemployment rate sits between 15 and 20%, much higher than it was during the recession in 2008 and 2009.

The U.S. unemployment rate hit a record high of 24.9% in 1933.

The new weekly jobless claims figure came around economist predictions, which were expected “to be staggering, but not growing, which is a small mercy,” said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter. For comparison, 5.2 million people filed unemployment claims for the week that ended April 11.

Continuing claims, or the total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits, rose by 4.1 million to an all-time high of 16 million in the week that ended April 11. That pushed the insured unemployment rate to 11% — the highest on record.

Delays in delivering benefits, though, are as troubling as the sheer magnitude of the figures, he said. Such problems not only create immediate hardships but also affect the shape of the recovery when the pandemic eases.

As the coronavirus began spreading in the United States earlier this year, many businesses rapidly began to close. Hotels, restaurants and airlines were hit particularly hard, but few businesses were immune from the economic toll. And the problems have only worsened each week, as more Americans cut back on spending, more businesses have laid off workers because income has fallen so sharply.

Pollack said many businesses quickly “cut to the bone” when they realized how the pandemic would gut sales. The effects spread through the supply chain and beyond.

Meanwhile, consumer spending, the engine behind the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, has tumbled. If they’re still operating, many offices are working with skeleton staffs and staring down months of dismal revenue.

The White House and Congress have tried to intervene but with limited impact so far.

New funding for small businesses in a $2 trillion March emergency spending package quickly dried up in the face of overwhelming demand, prompting the Senate to expand that funding by $310 billion on Tuesday. The House passed the stimulus measure Thursday, and President Donald Trump has said he will sign it.

In a survey that the Pew Research Center released Tuesday, 52% of low-income households — less than $37,500 a year for a family of three — said someone in the household had lost a job because of the coronavirus, compared with 32% of upper-income ones (with earnings of more than $112,600). Forty-two percent of families in the middle have been affected as well.

Those without a college education have taken a disproportionate hit, as have Hispanics and blacks, the survey found.

Fewer than half of working-age Americans will be earning a wage next month, said James Knightley, ING Chief International Economist.

In five weeks, 9.4% of the working-age population has filed for unemployment insurance, said Nick Bunker,

Indeed Hiring Lab’s director of economic research. That’s about twice the share of the population that lost a job during the recession. In some states, such as Michigan, about one in four workers has filed an unemployment claim in the past few weeks.

Employers are also unlikely to be hiring at the same levels they were before the pandemic. As of April 16, job postings on Indeed were down 34% compared with last year, Bunker said.

As part of its sprawling stimulus package, Washington has rolled out relief for millions of households and small businesses struggling to make ends meet. But money for struggling businesses quickly ran dry, and system glitches have prevented $1,200 stimulus checks from reaching some of the neediest.

Nearly a month after Washington rushed through an emergency package to aid jobless Americans, millions of laid-off workers have still not been able to apply for unemployment benefits — let alone receive them — because of overwhelmed state unemployment systems.

According to the Labor Department, only 10 states have started making payments under the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which extends coverage to freelancers, self-employed workers and part-timers. Most states have not even completed the system needed to start the process.

States manage their own unemployment insurance programs and set the level of benefits and eligibility rules. Now they are responsible for administering federal emergency benefits that provide payments for an additional 13 weeks, cover previously ineligible workers and add $600 to the regular weekly check.

Colin Harris of Marysville, Wash., got a letter March 31 from the state’s unemployment insurance office saying he was eligible for benefits after being laid off as a quality inspector at an aerospace company. He submitted claims two weeks in a row and heard nothing. When he submitted his next claim, he was told that he had been disqualified. He has tried calling more than 200 times since then, with no luck.

Meanwhile, many low-income veterans and Social Security recipients still haven’t received the stimulus money in their bank accounts, while other IRS checks are going to dead people. People who didn’t file tax returns last year or don’t have direct-deposit information may have weeks more to wait.