Layoffs Remain Stubbornly High as Covid Cases Hit New Daily Record – By Michael Rainey (The Fiscal Times) / Nov 6 2020
No matter who wins the White House, they’ll be dealing with an economy that is still showing signs of serious stress.
About 751,000 people filed initial state unemployment claims last week, the Labor Department announced Thursday, a slight decrease from the week before but more than analysts expected. Another 363,000 filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the federal program that covers gig workers and the self-employed, bringing the total of new filers to roughly 1.1 million, little changed from last week.
All told, about 21.5 million people are receiving come kind of unemployment assistance, a decline of 1.1 million from the week before – but about 15 times higher than the same time last year, before the Covid-19 took hold.
