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#770,000 filed a year into COVID crisis

#770,000 filed a year into COVID crisis

The number of workers seeking unemployment benefits stubbornly increased last week as the labor market’s coronavirus crisis reached the one-year mark, the feds said Thursday.

The latest batch of 770,000 initial jobless claims brought the total for the COVID-19 pandemic to nearly 81.9 million — a number equivalent to more than half the nation’s workforce.

Weekly jobless filings have now hovered above the pre-pandemic record of 695,000 for 52 straight weeks even as declining infections, loosening business restrictions and rising vaccinations have helped the job market recover in recent months.

“As the economy gets back to pre-pandemic levels, labor market slack will continue to shrink, although it will take time to be completely eliminated with the effects of shadow joblessness persisting for an extended period of time,” Bloomberg economist Eliza Winger said.

Economists were expecting jobless filings to drop to 700,000 last week from the prior week’s 725,000, according to Wrightson ICAP. That would have been the lowest weekly figure since COVID-19 caused a historic employment crisis a year ago.

In that bleak year, one in four American workers has received at least one unemployment payment as officials shelled out a whopping $637 billion in state and federal jobless aid, according to an analysis by the Century Foundation.

“Even in the best scenario of rapid economic growth that was forecast by the Federal Reserve this week, it will take many months for businesses to reopen and rehire the legions still on jobless rolls,” said Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and senior fellow at the think tank.

A woman logs onto the unemployment website on her laptop
Biden’s bill also lets Americans avoid paying income taxes on up to $10,200 of unemployment benefits received last year to help people who relied on aid avoid higher tax bills.
Getty Images

Last week’s filings coincided with President Biden’s signing of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which extended a $300-a-week supplement for standard jobless benefits along with crucial unemployment aid for gig workers and self-employed people.

The bill also lets Americans avoid paying income taxes on up to $10,200 of unemployment benefits received last year to help people who relied on aid avoid higher tax bills.

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