By The Indianapolis Business Journal
More than 1.4 million laid-off Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, marking the 19th straight week that more than 1 million people have applied for unemployment benefits. The number of new applicants was up by 12,000 from the week before, the second straight increase.
In Indiana, 20,609 people filed initial unemployment claims in the week ended July 25, up from an adjusted number of 17,911 the previous week, an increase of 2,698. Prior to the pandemic, the state was typically seeing fewer than 3,000 claims per week.
After peaking at more than 146,000 initial claims in late March, weekly claims had been declining in Indiana during the pandemic until showing several weekly increases in June. Big spikes in claims late in the month were attributed partly to organized fraud that had previously struck several other states.
Initial claims in Indiana have swung back and forth in July. They dropped by more than 10,000 initial claims in the week ended July 18 after rising more than 6,000 in the previous week.
A total of 226,972 people were receiving unemployment benefits in Indiana as of July 18, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was up from 190,854 the previous week.
Thursday’s report also showed that an additional 829,697 people applied for jobless benefits nationally last week under the new Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for self-employed and gig workers. That was up from an adjusted 936,077 the previous week.
Indiana reported 7,330 new recipients for the PUA program in the week ended July 25 after reporting 7,565 new claims the previous week.
The state reported 161,862 people were receiving continued PUA aid as of July 11, up from 267,770 the prior week.
PUA provides up to 39 weeks of unemployment benefits to individuals not eligible for regular unemployment compensation or extended benefits. Those include the self-employed, independent contractors, gig economy workers and workers for certain religious entities.
The continuing wave of job cuts is occurring against the backdrop of a spike in virus cases that has led many states to halt plans to reopen businesses and has caused millions of consumers to delay any return to traveling, shopping and other normal economic activity. Those trends have forced many businesses to cut jobs or at least delay hiring.
For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic.
