Despite Initial Claims Drop, the Total Number of Americans on Jobless Benefits Jumped to Nearly 19 Million

Despite a decline in initial claims for unemployment benefits under state-run programs, the total number of Americans receiving some form of unemployment compensation rose 733,862 to nearly 19 million, data from the Department of Labor showed Thursday.

Both new claims and ongoing claims in traditional unemployment programs dropped on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to Thursday’s jobless claims release.

But the federal government launched new programs during the pandemic to cover workers who typically cannot claim unemployment benefits. And when those are added in, the total number of people receiving benefits climbed in the new data.

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance provides benefits to individuals who are self-employed, seeking part-time employment, or who otherwise would not qualify for regular unemployment compensation. The data on these is reported unadjusted and with a delay, so the most recent data cover the first week in March. These show 7,735,491 claimants, up 118,898 from the previous week.

The Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Claims, which cover workers who exhausted their benefits under other programs, rose by 734,692 to 5,551,215. There were also over a million workers covered by the Extended Benefits program, which covers workers out of work for long periods in states with very high levels of unemployment.

All told, there were 18,952,795 Americans receiving unemployment benefits in the week that ended March 6.

The seasonally adjusted claims under regular state programs dropped in that week to 4,134,000 from 4,142,000 in the prior week. The unadjusted regular state program number dropped to 4,458,888 from 4,547,888 in the prior week. So ongoing claims in traditional programs were falling while the new programs’ claims were climbing.