State unemployment claims fall for second straight week

7.3 million California workers have lost jobs during shutdowns

California workers filed fewer first-time claims for unemployment last week, marking the second straight decline in the pace of filings, federal officials reported Thursday, a hopeful sign in a time of coronavirus-linked business shutdowns.

An estimated 228,500 workers in California filed initial unemployment claims during the week that ended on Aug. 1, down about 16,000 from the prior week, the U.S. Labor Department reported.

But the current trend for weekly unemployment claims remains brutally elevated compared with just six months ago, when the economy in the Bay Area and California had soared to all-time highs. During January and February, before the onset of government-mandated business shutdowns, initial unemployment claims in California averaged 44,800 a week. The

“The most heated discussions in Sacramento now focus on unemployment insurance and other benefits, not on restarting the economy.”

— Michael Bernick, a Milken Institute Fellow and former EDD director

current level is five times higher, and thousands of frustrated workers are still struggling to get benefits from the state’s beleaguered Employment Development Department.

During the four most recent weeks, 1.05 million initial unemployment claims have been filed in California, an analysis of the government reports shows. The pace of claims has not sunk below 1 million for nearly two months.

Since mid-March, workers statewide have filed 7.31 million unemployment claims, this news organization’s analysis of the Labor Department report shows.

“In recent weeks we’re seeing workers initially furloughed, who are now being laid off due to the lockdowns,” said Michael Bernick,

a Milken Institute Fellow and former EDD director.

In the United States, 1.19 million workers filed initial claims for unemployment last week, down 249,000 from the 1.44 million claims filed the prior week. National unemployment claims have not fallen below the 1 million mark since the business shutdowns began in mid-March.

As the economic toll continues, unemployed California workers have grown sharply more pessimistic that they will regain the jobs they have lost, a new study determined.

About 61% of the California workers who filed new unemployment claims during the week ending July 25 reported that they expected to be recalled by employers who had laid them off or furloughed them, according to a report prepared by the California Policy Lab at UC Berkeley and UCLA.

That’s well below the 80% who said they expected to be recalled to their jobs in mid-March, at the start of the shutdowns.

The elevated levels of unemployment

claims in California are happening as the EDD still struggles to make payments for jobless benefits to the record numbers of people who are out of work. The EDD has released figures that suggest the disgraced state agency hasn’t made payments to 1.13 million California workers who are trapped in a bureaucratic maze and might not receive their first benefits for two months or even longer.

On Thursday, one day after a majority of the state’s legislators delivered a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom calling for dramatic action to get those claims paid now, Assembly member Jim Patterson, a Fresno Republican, demanded the removal and replacement of EDD Director Sharon Hilliard.

“Director Hilliard is only now telling us just how deep and wide the problems are with the EDD,” Patterson said Thursday.

“These aren’t new problems. My office has been aware of serious delays at the EDD going back to November of last year.”

At a state legislative hearing on July 30, some lawmakers on a key Assembly subcommittee suggested that Hilliard has deliberately misled the Legislature and others regarding the problems at the EDD.

“It’s time she was replaced with someone who can help us create the EDD of the 21st century,” said Patterson.

The state agency’s ineffective response, broken call center and primitive computer systems, along with the EDD’s vague assessments about its backlog of unpaid claims, prompted lawmakers to demand that the state find some way to pay workers immediately.

“Government officials, labor unions and even business organizations have become so resigned to the

lockdowns,” said Bernick. “The most heated discussions in Sacramento now focus on unemployment insurance and other benefits, not on restarting the economy.”

Intensifying the plight of unemployed California workers: A $600 weekly federal unemployment benefits supplement has expired, and politicians in Washington, D.C., have yet to cobble together a replacement package.

Art Zikorus, a San Jose resident, was working at a company in the medical device industry that shut down. He has been out of work since early March and hasn’t received any payments from the EDD.

“I am one of those affected by EDD’s inaction,” Zikorus said. “What’s the action plan to fix this ongoing train wreck?”