OUT OF WORK
Unemployment a ‘big challenge,’ Baker says, as state and national claims spike
A historic number of people are filing for unemployment in the state and across the country as the coronavirus outbreak continues to put people out of work.
Last week alone, 147,992 people filed an initial claim for unemployment insurance in Massachusetts and 3.283 million filed nationally, almost five times the previous record set in 1982.
“States have gotten very aggressive about implementing social distancing criteria and eliminating all nonessential employment, changing the very nature of the way other operations work. That has put a tremendous number of people out of work,” Gov. Charlie Baker said during a COVID-19 update at the State House Thursday. “I think, in many ways, this is going to be one of the biggest challenges that states are going to face over the course of the next several weeks.”
The state jump between March 15 and March 21 represents a 1,904% increase over the 7,449 filed the week prior, according to the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, and the national spike is up from 282,000 during the previous week.
The governor filed for a Major Disaster Declaration through FEMA to President Trump Thursday, which would provide more money to cities, towns, state agencies, and certain nonprofits statewide, as well as access to Disaster Unemployment Assistance to give benefits to workers who don’t qualify for the regular program.
As job losses mount, some economists say the nation’s unemployment rate could approach 13% by May. By comparison, the highest jobless rate during the Great Recession, which ended in 2009, was 10%. In the five days last week, Massachusetts received about twice as many new unemployment claims as were filed during the entire worst month of the great recession, according to EOL.
The food and accommodation industries took the biggest blow in the state last week, with 44,353 workers filing new claims, the single largest registered increase.
Percentage-wise, the largest spike in new claims was in health care and social assistance, with 18,192 people fueling a 4,035% increase.
Baker has been beefing up operations in the state’s labor departments in anticipation of the surge in claims. The call center, which 10 days ago had roughly 50 people in it, now has 300 state workers taking calls remotely, according to Baker.
“By this time next week, it will probably have over 400 people in it,” Baker said. “Our goal here is to get through this as quickly as we can and having talked to a number of other states already, this is going to be a big challenge for everybody but something that people believe absolutely, positively has to get done as quickly as possible.”
Baker signed an emergency bill last week to cut unemployment checks faster by waiving a oneweek waiting period to receive benefits. Folks out of work are encouraged to apply for unemployment benefits on the state website. Baker emphasized the importance of making sure the name of the employer on the application matches exactly the name on a W2 form to avoid a claim rejection.