Unemployment Claims Increase as a Dark Covid Winter Settles In

- The weekly average for September was the lowest since the pandemic, at 633 initial claims per week across the Eastern Shore.
- The October average was more than twice that, at 1362.
- The November average was a slight drop from October, but still high, at 1168.
- The December average held steady at 1173.
- Initial claims are still many times higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Large numbers of claims, enhanced fraud checking, and antiquated computer systems make these payment processing delays a problem in almost every state. Eastern Shore residents have been caught up in this mess, sometimes experiencing waits of several months before receiving their benefits, which causes great hardship. Unlike the current administration, President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team has made providing help in easing these logjams a priority.
There was also a disappointing jobs report for November.
Nationally, only 245,000 jobs were created in November, far fewer than economists had hoped. This figure signals that the economic recovery depends upon a covid-19 recovery.
The November unemployment rate decreased to 6.7 percent, but much of that decline was the result of many fewer people looking for jobs.
“This is a grim jobs report,” President-elect Biden said in a statement. “It shows an economy that is stalling. It confirms we remain in the midst of one of the worst economic and jobs crises in modern history.”
The December jobs report will be released on January 8.
Gov. Larry Hogan did not wait for federal government assistance for Maryland’s small businesses, and in December announced emergency economic relief programs totaling more than $600 million for small businesses and families. Additionally, Hogan has pledged to work with the legislature in the 2021 session to pass a much larger economic and stimulus relief package to provide further support for Maryland’s struggling families and small businesses.
He stressed, however, that federal assistance is necessary to help states through the pandemic, and criticized Congress for inaction in providing a relief bill.
After much drama and uncertainty, President Trump signed the bipartisan $900 billion stimulus/relief bill into law on December 27.
The new legislation extends supplemental unemployment benefits of up to $300 per week and continues Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the program for part-time and gig workers who are ineligible for regular state unemployment benefits. Along with jobless benefits, stimulus checks, aid to small businesses, and money for covid-19 vaccine distribution are included in this legislation.
Experts predict it will be summer before the vaccines start to work and the pandemic eases. The incoming administration realizes that to improve the economy, we must combat the coronavirus. In the meantime, the economic threats to many of our neighbors — loss of income, rising hunger, and homelessness — are severe.
Average weekly initial claims for the Eastern Shore were calculated for each month since March 2020, using data from all nine counties, as shown in the graph and table. See county averages in the table. Numbers are seasonally adjusted.
A recent Government Accountability Office study found that because of reporting anomalies and backlogs in state unemployment offices, the number of CARES Act unemployment claims could be overstated. In our table and graph, regular unemployment and CARES unemployment are combined.
Jan Plotczyk spent 25 years as a survey statistician with the federal government, at the Census Bureau and the National Center for Education Statistics. She retired to Rock Hall.
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