Unemployment pay could rise $600 per week as claims soar
The U.S. Senate approved an additional $600 a week in jobless benefits for laid-off workers on Wednesday as the number of people applying for help nationwide hit an all-time weekly record of 3.28 million because of the economic carnage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Arizona also set a new one-day record this week for the number of jobless claims filed.
Benefits currently are capped at $240 a week in Arizona, the secondlowest amount in the nation. The change would increase the figure to
$840 per week for people laid off because of the outbreak.
The measure still needs a vote from the U.S. House of Representatives, expected on Friday, and the president’s signature.
The extension would last for up to four months and benefits would be available to workers who are part time or self-employed. People still unemployed after their state benefits expire could get an additional 13 weeks of help.
Price Fishback, an economics professor at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management, said the measures from Congress are promising.
“The key to everything is to make sure there’s enough liquidity for people to survive in the short term,” Fishback said. “If it can stop a business from closing down, people from losing assets and things like that, then when the quarantine goes away, things might pick back up very quickly.”
Arizonans filed 14,000 claims in single day
The measures from Congress come as Arizona’s jobless claims also hit a record last week of nearly 30,000 first-time claims, but the situation is much more dire as tens of thousands of people find themselves out of work because of the pandemic, according to the state.
On Monday alone, 14,000 Arizonans filed first-time claims for benefits, according to Bret Bezio, deputy press secretary for the Arizona Department of Economic Security. That single day is more applications than Arizona has ever seen in a week, even amid the worst economic times.
The most first-time claims ever in Arizona was 11,178 the week of July 4, 2009, according to records that go back to 1987.
“It is unlikely there is a higher number since population and labor force would be lower in the earlier years,” said Lee McPheters, an economics professor at ASU and director of the JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center.
Back in 2009 Arizona was reeling from the Great Recession.
The total number of people getting jobless benefits in the state hit an all-time high of 116,601 the week of July 25, 2009, and has mostly crept down since then.
As of January this year, just about 18,000 people were getting continuing benefits.
“DES is doing everything it can to get Arizonans benefits as soon as possible,” Bezio said, adding that prior to the surge in claims it was taking about 14 days to pay applicants after they applied.
“However, DES is experiencing an influx of claims due to COVID-19 and processing times may vary,” he said. “Additionally, if there are issues with the claim, such as incomplete information, processing the claim may be delayed.”
Gov. Doug Ducey issued an executive order on March 20 to waive the usual one-week waiting period after an employee loses a job before they can apply for unemployment benefits.
He also waived the requirement that recipients search for work to get their payments, and increased eligibility for people working at companies that have closed or reduced hours because of the pandemic, have gotten sick or have to care for sick family members.
DES says it will apply those benefits to hardships experienced after March 11 on applications made starting March 23.
Claims increase by 3 million nationwide
Several states are seeing jaw-dropping increases in jobless-benefit applications, according to the Department of Labor’s weekly report.
Massachusetts, for example, saw about 148,000 new applications last week, compared with just 7,500 the week before.
For the week ending March 21, 3.28 million people made an initial claim for benefits, which was up 3 million from the week before, when just 282,000 people made initial applications according to the Labor Department.
“This marks the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the seasonally adjusted series,” the Labor Department reported Thursday. “The previous high was 695,000 in October of 1982.” The surge was blamed squarely on coronavirus. “Nearly every state providing comments cited the COVID-19 virus impacts,” the Labor Department. “States continued to cite services industries broadly, particularly accommodation and food services. Additional industries heavily cited for the increases included the health care and social assistance, arts, entertainment and recreation, transportation and warehousing, and manufacturing industries.”