Weekly jobless claims rise slightly to 770K as US marks one year of recession
By Sylvan Lane - 03/18/21 09:02 AM EDT Seasonally adjusted new applications for unemployment insurance totaled 770,000 last week, according to Labor Department data, rising slightly as the U.S. marked one year since the start of the coronavirus recession.
Jobless claims rose by 45,000 in the week ending March 13 from the previous week’s revised total of 725,000. The number of new applicants for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance dropped sharply to 282,394 last week from 478,914 in the week ending March 6.
Altogether, 18.2 million Americans were on some form of jobless aid in the week ending February 27 roughly a year after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic shattered the U.S. economy.
Weekly jobless claims skyrocketed during the week ending March 21, 2020 as thousands of businesses shut down to slow the spread of COVID-19. After lingering near 200,000 each week before the pandemic, weekly claims exceed 1 million from the end March until the middle of August and remain well above pre-pandemic records.
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https://thehill.com/policy/finance/543777-weekly-jobless-claims-rise-slightly-to-770k-as-us-marks-one-year-of-recession
