State unemployment claims decreasing

The number of continued state unemployment claims has decreased.  For the week ending August 15th, there were just more than nine-thousand claims, a decrease of more than 16-thousand from the pandemic high of more than 25-thousand in May.  This indicates the number of unemployed workers eligible for and receiving benefits after their initial claim.

During the past week, a total of 752 initial weekly claims for state unemployment benefits were processed by the state Department of Labor and Regulation. This is a decrease of 32 claims from the prior week’s total of 784.

  A total of one-and-a-half million dollars was paid out in state benefits, in addition to two-point-seven million dollars in Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, more than one-million dollars in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and 105-thousand dollars in Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits.