The Department of Labor (DOL) released the most recent unemployment insurance (UI) claims data yesterday, showing that another 1.9 million people filed for regular UI benefits last week (not seasonally adjusted) and 1.2 million for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), the new program for workers who aren’t eligible for regular UI, such as gig workers.

In the last 10 weeks, more than one in five people in the workforce are either receiving or have recently applied for unemployment benefits—regular or PUA. These benefits are a critical lifeline that help workers make ends meet while slowing the spread of coronavirus as we practice social distancing. The $600 increase in weekly UI benefits was perhaps the most effective measure in the CARES Act for insulating workers from economic harm, and it should be extended past July.

For the last few weeks, we have been reporting the sum of initial claims since we first started seeing the economic effects of the pandemic. This week, we are reporting a different measure of the cumulative number of people claiming UI: the total number of workers who are either on unemployment benefits, or have applied and are still waiting to see if they will get benefits.

Figure A and Table 1 show the total number of workers that have either made it through at least the first round of regular state UI processing as of May 16 (these are known as “continued” claims) or had filed initial regular UI claims during the weeks of May 16 or May 23. Figure A and Table 2 show the total number of workers that have either made it through at least the first round of PUA processing by May 9 or had filed initial PUA claims during the weeks of May 9, May 16, or May 23. We do not sum the two totals together because the potential double counting would be more misleading at the state level.1

As of last week, six states had more than one million workers either receiving regular UI benefits or waiting for their claim to be approved: California (2.6 million), New York (2.2 million), Texas (1.6 million), Michigan (1.1 million), Georgia (1.1 million), and Pennsylvania (1.0 million). 22 additional states had more than a quarter million workers receiving or awaiting benefits.

Table 2 below displays the reported number of people who applied for PUA—the new federal program that extends unemployment compensation to workers who are not eligible for regular UI but are out of work due to the pandemic, such as gig workers and people who left their jobs to care for a child.

As of last week, DOL reported that over 11 million workers across 35 states are receiving or waiting on a decision for PUA benefits, which underscores the importance of extending benefits to those who would otherwise not have been eligible. Nine states have at least a quarter million workers in this category: Michigan (2.1 million), Massachusetts (1.5 million), California (1.5 million), Pennsylvania (914,058), Ohio (770,767), New York (707,487), New Jersey (546,306), Washington (441,587), and Texas (298,353).

To mitigate the economic harm to workers, the next federal relief and recovery package should include worker protections, investments in our democracy, resources for coronavirus testing and contact tracing (which is necessary to reopen the economy) and an extension of the across-the-board $600 increase in weekly unemployment benefits well past its expiration at the end of July. The package should also include substantial aid to state and local governments. Without this aid, a prolonged depression is inevitable, especially if state and local governments make the same budget and employment cuts that slowed the recovery after the Great Recession.

1. Unless otherwise noted, the numbers in this blog post are the ones reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, which they receive from the state agencies that administer UI. While DOL is asking states to report regular UI claims and PUA claims separately, many states are also including some or all PUA claimants in their reported regular UI claims. As state agencies work to get these new programs up and running, there will likely continue to be some misreporting. Since the number of UI claims is one of the most up-to-date measures of labor market weakness and access to benefits, we will still be analyzing it each week as reported by DOL, but we ask that you keep these caveats in mind when interpreting the data.