End of July jobless rate remained high, although lower than forecast

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Although the number of employment claims at the end of July was over 1 million for the 20th straight week, it was also the lowest number of new claims since the US was struck by COVID-19 in March, the Washington Examiner reports. The end of July saw 1.2 million claims when economists had forecast there would be 1.42 million.

The number of jobless claims shot up to 6.8 million in the week ending 28 March, but then began dropping sharply through May, the Washington Examiner reports. The weekly jobless claims have been over just over 1 million since then, although in the week ending July 18 there were 1.43 million claims, and the week before that there were 1.42 million.

Prior to the pandemic, the weekly jobless claims were around 200,000 for the whole country. As the crisis took hold, California alone saw over 244,000 initial claims for the week ending July 25, the Washington Examiner said.

This time last year, the total number of people claiming benefits across all programs was 1.7 million. This year, the number was 32 million for the week ending July 18.

“This is hardly the time to check off the ‘mission accomplished’ box on healing the pandemic-ravaged economy,” Mark Hamrick, a senior analyst with Bankrate.com, told the Washington Examiner.

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