Jobless claims fall, but millions still hurting
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 751,000, the lowest since March, but it's still historically high and indicates the viral pandemic is forcing many employers to cut jobs.
Applications for unemployment aid fell 40,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. They fell in 30 states, including big drops in California, Florida and Texas. Claims rose in Arizona, Illinois, and Michigan.
In Ohio, 17,531 workers filed for their first unemployment help last week, almost identical to the previous week. The figures are a fraction of the 256,684 workers who filed for help at the peak of the pandemic layoffs in the spring but still about triple the number of claims this time last year.
Another 266,208 Ohioans continued their jobless claims last week, about half the peak earlier this year.
Rising confirmed virus cases in nearly every state including Ohio, along with a cutoff in federal aid, are threatening to weaken the economy in the coming months. As temperatures fall, restaurants and bars will likely serve fewer customers outdoors. And many consumers may increasingly stay home to avoid infection. Those trends could force employers to slash more jobs during the winter.
The government said Thursday that the economy expanded at a record 33% annual rate in the July-september quarter. That's a sharp rebound after an epic collapse in the spring, yet the increase recovers only about two-thirds of what was lost to the pandemic.
With Congress having failed to agree on any further stimulus this year, millions of unemployed Americans who will lose all their jobless benefits in the coming weeks and months will likely pull back further on spending. Without another round of loans from the government, many small companies are expected to go out of business.
Thursday's report from the Labor Department said the number of people who are continuing to receive unemployment benefits fell more than 700,000 to 7.76 million. The decline shows that some of the unemployed are being recalled to their old jobs or are finding new ones.
But it also indicates that many jobless Americans have used up their state unemployment aid – which typically expires after six months – and have transitioned to a federal extended benefits program that lasts an additional 13 weeks. Job growth has slowed for three straight months, leaving the economy still 10.7 million jobs short of its prepandemic level.