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US Unemployment Benefit Claims Ease, But Remain High

VOA News

   The number of people in the United States applying for unemployment
   benefits last week dropped slightly, the Labor Department reported
   Thursday, but remained historically high, despite a significant easing
   of a coronavirus pandemic that continues to weaken the world's largest
   economy.

   The government said 793,000 workers filed for benefits last week, down
   19,000 from the revised figure of the previous week.

   As President Joe Biden starts his fourth week in office, the U.S.
   economy is still facing headwinds, with tens of thousands of people
   being infected daily by the coronavirus, despite recent declines, and
   employers confronted with new orders from state and municipal officials
   to restrict business hours or to shut down to try to prevent the spread
   of the virus.

   For months now, the number of jobless benefit claims has remained above
   700,000 a week, and above 800,000 and 900,000 in some weeks.

   All the weekly totals in the last several months have been well below
   the 6.9 million record number of claims filed late last March as the
   pandemic took hold in the U.S. Still, all the weekly jobless benefit
   claim figures in the last 11 months have been above the highest
   pre-pandemic level in records going back to the 1960s.

   The federal government has been making $300-a-week extra payments to
   the jobless on top of less state benefits, a stipend that will last
   into March. Biden, as part of his proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus
   relief package, is trying to boost that stipend to $400 a week through
   September. Republicans want to keep the payments at $300 and end them
   sooner.

   Biden has narrow majorities in both the Senate and House of
   Representatives, possibly easing approval of his relief plan, but only
   if Democrats vote as a bloc or the president can convince some
   Republican lawmakers to support it.

   The Democratic Party-controlled Congress has advanced procedural rules
   that would allow it to eventually approve the deal on a straight
   party-line vote if needed, without Republican support. But many details
   of the legislation are uncertain.

   Biden met with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers last week to
   press for approval of his plan rather than a $618 billion plan advanced
   by Republicans. Biden relented slightly, however, saying he would agree
   to send only $1,400 stipends to millions of adults in the U.S. with
   smaller incomes than those who received assistance last year.

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