San José, CA – After months of delay and weeks of infighting, on Monday, July 27 the Trump administration and the Republican Senate put forward their proposal for more economic relief from the pandemic and recession. With the $600 a week in additional benefits expiring, the Republicans want to cut this by $400 a week, down to $200. With the national unemployment benefit averaging about $350 a week, this would mean a more than 40% cut in their benefits.
San José, CA – The $600 a week in additional unemployment insurance benefits is set to expire at the end of July. This aid is called the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation or FPUC. More than 25 million people who are receiving regular state unemployment benefits, or the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA for the self-employed, will lose their FPUC benefit.
San José, CA – In less than two weeks the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation or FPUC, which provides an extra $600 a week to those who are unemployed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, will end. The FPUC was part of CARES act passed back in March as disaster relief as the pandemic began to ravage the U.S. economy.
COVID-19 infections and end to enhanced benefits to make a bad situation worse
San José, CA – On Thursday, July 9, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the broadest measure of people on unemployment continued to climb. In the week ending June 20, the total number was 32.9 million, up by 1.4 million from a week earlier. This number includes those who are receiving the regular state unemployment insurance benefits, the growing number getting the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA, the Federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation or PEUC, and other smaller programs.
Trump administration still opposed to extending aid for unemployed
San José, CA – The latest report by the Labor Department on Thursday, July 2 indicated new claims for aid for unemployed showed no improvement for the third week in a row. While new claims for the regular state unemployment insurance benefits did fall by 50,000 from last week’s report, to 1.43 million, new claims for the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA actually rose by 110,000 from last week’s report, to 840,000. Taken together, new claims for the two main programs to aid the unemployed totaled 2.27 million for the week ending June 27, slighting more than the previous week and the same as two weeks ago.
Countdown to end of extra unemployment insurance continues
San José, CA – For the second week in a row, new applications for state unemployment insurance or UI did not drop by much, despite economists’ expectations. New claims for the week ending June 20 were 1.48 million, down only 28,000 from last week’s initial estimate. New applications for the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, fell by 42,000 to 728,000 last week. Together the PUA and state unemployment insurance applications topped 2.2 million, only slightly lower than the 2.27 million total for the week before.
San José, CA – In six weeks, tens of millions of unemployed people face the end of the additional $600 a week in unemployment insurance benefits. This additional benefit that helps low income workers the most is set to expire due to its being opposed by the Republican-controlled Senate. These same workers were hardest hit by the pandemic recession, and many face the prospect of their jobs not coming back. This is just another example of how the economic relief has helped large corporations, which can aided by the Federal Reserve, while low-income workers are subject to punishment by republicans who see the aid as discouraging people from returning to work.
San José, CA – On Thursday, June 11, reality finally caught up with Wall Street. For weeks there was a huge gap between the economy, where millions upon millions of people had lost their jobs and livelihood, and the soaring stock market which had turned positive for the year. But today reality seems to have sunk in, sending the headline Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 1800 points, or almost 7%. The broad S&P 500 index fell almost 6%, and the technology-heavy NASDAQ fell more than 5%. Stock market from Asia to Europe also fell.
San José, CA – Corporate-owned media is blaring that the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell in May to 13.3%, from 14.7% in April. This was far better than even the most optimistic economist expected and even led to at least one to declare that “the recession is over.” Well, when something is too good to be true, it usually isn’t true.
Nearly three times as high as the pre-pandemic record
San José, CA – On Thursday, June 4 the federal Department of Labor reported that 1.9 million new claims for state unemployment insurance or UI benefits were filed in the week ending May 30. This was down by 250,000 claims from the previous week, continuing the slow decline in new applications. However, this was still more than two and a half times higher than the previous pre-pandemic record of almost 700,000 claims made during the deep 1981-82 recession.
