Give Thanks for unemployment claim drop, but many still in danger of being cut off

This week’s unemployment claims report was something that had gotten a bit more attention, as the previous two weeks had significant increases in new claims, leading to concerns that the increased amount of COVID cases in the country was starting to hammer the jobs market.

Well, we got a reprieve in the week of Thanksgiving, as the numbers went back down, at least for one week.

In the week ending November 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 712,000, a decrease of 75,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 9,000 from 778,000 to 787,000. The 4-week moving average was 739,500, a decrease of 11,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 2,250 from 748,500 to 750,750.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.8 percent for the week ending November 21, a decrease of 0.4 percentage point from the previous week's revised rate. The previous week's rate was revised up by 0.1 from 4.1 to 4.2 percent. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending November 21 was 5,520,000, a decrease of 569,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up 18,000 from 6,071,000 to 6,089,000. The 4-week moving average was 6,194,250, a decrease of 425,500 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 4,500 from 6,615,250 to 6,619,750.

So that news should resume the downward trend in cases that we were seeing up until early November.

However, this was Thanksgiving Week, which means many unemployment offices were closed on Thursday (and possibly Friday), and some individuals may not have filed when they normally would have. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s US monthly jobs report and next week’s report on unemployment claims to get a better idea on where we are, and where we might be going.

Going into the state totals, Wisconsin is the only state in the Midwest that hasn’t seen a significant jump in new claims in at least one of the last 2 weeks. Not coincidentally, almost every one of the other states have implemented new COVID-related lockdown provisions over those two weeks, while Gov Evers merely gave strong encouragement to restricting operations and travel, due to his hands being tied by prior actions from the GOP Legislature and state Supreme Court.

But what is going up in Wisconsin is the number of people out of work for more than 26 weeks, as evidenced by the nearly 6,000-person increase in the PEUC program. There were nearly 66,000 Wisconsinites in that program as of November 14, and enrollment has nearly tripled since Labor Day.

It also raised my eyebrows to see the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development try to remind people on Wednesday that they could get benefits beyond PEUC’s 39-week cutoff.

The Department of Workforce Development (DWD) today announced that Wisconsin residents who have exhausted their regular unemployment insurance (UI) benefits and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) may now apply for Extended Benefits (EB).

EB provides up to 13 additional weeks of payments to individuals who have exhausted 26 weeks of regular UI benefits and 13 weeks of PEUC. The EB program does not apply to individuals collecting Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA).

This was an odd release to make for a couple of reasons. The first is that Wisconsinites could already get Extended Benefits, as 40 people got EB in the 2nd week of November.

The second is that Wisconsin went OFF the EB program 4 weeks ago, because the number of people on unemployment had gone below a cutoff point. Heck, DWD had a whole press release about it at the time, and this week’s release even mentions that you can’t receive EB in any week past Nov. 7.

Now, I understand that some benefits may be backlogged and/or not yet registered, but did DWD decide to do this new notification of EB being “available” in Wisconsin because they’ve received information that some people eligible for EB at the time didn’t sign up? I just found the whole thing weird.

What’s not weird, but what is scary, is that the PEUC and contractor-related PUA program (that just under 30,000 Wisconsinites were in at mid-November) is scheduled to end in 3 weeks unless Congress can extend it in a new stimulus package. That’s over 95,000 Wisconsinites that are set to be cut off in December (and possibly more), in a time when far too many are already living close to the edge.

Those cut-off Wisconsinites might not find a lot of work to return to, at least in the short term. In addition, a lot more Sconnies are likely to be filing new claims as COVID and the cold causes even more businesses to close up in the coming weeks. So let's not draw too much from the "improvement" in unemployment claims that we saw on Thanksgiving week. Much like with Wisconsin’s coronavirus figures from last week, we need a normal week of work and reporting to find out if things are truly getting better.