Thursday, April 9, 2020

U.S. Jobless Claims Jump Another 6.6 Million


Jobless claims jumped by  6.6 million in the week ended April 4, reports the Labor Department.

This brings the total claims over the past three weeks to more than 16 million.

This what happens when you shutdown most of the economy.

And I remind you of what I highlighted in an earlier post, the current structure of unemployment bailouts is such that a lot of people are going to incentivized to stay unemployed:

 Casey B. Mulligan and Brian Blase explain in The Wall Street Journal:
One measure that will soon be famous: the $1,000 weekly payments to the average person receiving unemployment insurance benefits. Congress provided a $600 increase for a four-month period to the nearly $400 average weekly amount that the unemployed receive.
A thousand dollars a week is more than what the majority of full-time workers were getting paid before the virus arrived. The $600 bonus is 24 times the $25 bonus Congress paid during the last recession, when government policies that discouraged work severely harmed the economic recovery.
One measure that will soon be famous: the $1,000 weekly payments to the average person receiving unemployment insurance benefits. Congress provided a $600 increase for a four-month period to the nearly $400 average weekly amount that the unemployed receive.
A thousand dollars a week is more than what the majority of full-time workers were getting paid before the virus arrived. The $600 bonus is 24 times the $25 bonus Congress paid during the last recession, when government policies that discouraged work severely harmed the economic recovery.
-RW



4 comments:

  1. Here in Pennsylvavia the unemployment system is overwhelmed. A glitch in the system has caused people who are re-opening claims to be unable to do their biweekly filing. One part of the system tells them they can file, but when tbey go to file it tells they have to reopen the claim. I have never seen first hand this level of incompetence.

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    1. Well, I guess you didn't have too many dealings with the government. It still amazes me that people believe government can save or help them...

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    2. No I haven't. Not that I expect them to do anything well, nor do I expect them to save anybody. It is just that when it nails you personally this hard, it sinks in more. My other most direct experience of government incompetence was when I lived in philadelphia and got attacked by some weirdo in the street. I called the Philly police. They never came, so I had to call them again. My mistake was calling the city police instead of the UPenn campus police, who whould have been their in about 10 seconds.

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  2. In Washington State, you are normally supposed to file claim every week (loke show proof you searched for a job). I was recently informed that due to the covid19 they are now just letting people collect without having to even search for a job, at least for the time being.

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