State’s jobless claims fall as $1.9T American Rescue Plan becomes law,

New and continuing Michigan jobless claims fell last week as President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan into law Friday to give relief to struggling individuals sidelined from work by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, now in its second year.

U.S. Labor Department numbers released Thursday show 10,284 new jobless claims in Michigan for the week ending March 6, down slightly from an adjusted 11,497 new claims filed the previous week.

Continuing claims in Michigan, which lag by a week, fell to 152,795 from 178,216 the prior week.

Nationally, new jobless claims fell last week to 712,000, the lowest total since early November, evidence that fewer employers are cutting jobs amid a decline in confirmed coronavirus cases and signs of an improving economy. The Labor Department said Thursday that applications for unemployment aid dropped by 42,000 from 754,000 the week before.

Though the job market has been slowly strengthening, many businesses remain under pressure, and 9.6 million jobs remain lost to the pandemic that flattened the economy 12 months ago.

In Michigan, the number of new and continuing jobless claims has fallen dramatically since its peak last April when when 388,554 people filed new jobless claims in just one week and continuing claims nearly hit one million.

While the economy is slowly recovering as coronavirus cases trend downward and more people get vaccinations, new and continuing jobless claims remain twice their pre-pandemic levels.

Michigan, in the last year, has paid out $30.7 billion in jobless claims to 3.17 million workers, most of it federally funded, indicating that much of the state’s workforce were at least temporarily laid off.

Among the hardest hit by the pandemic nationally and in Michigan has been the restaurant and hospitality industries, forced to limit capacity or close to stem the spread of the virus during the year.

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan aims to assist workers still struggling to find employment or be called back to work by extending unemployment benefits and adding an additional $300 a week. And, the package includes stimulus payments of $1,400 per individual.

Many economists suggest that the combination of substantial federal aid, a rising pace of vaccinations, continually low borrowing rates and the increased willingness of consumers to spend will unleash a robust economic recovery later this year. Still, defeating the coronavirus remains vital to achieving a full recovery of the economy and the job market.

“These are welcome policies, but they are still temporary relief,” said AnnElizabeth Konkel, economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. “To fully heal the labor market, the public health situation must be under control. Coronavirus started this mess and continues to cause massive economic damage on a daily basis.”