Last week 2 million workers applied for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. Breaking that down: 1.2 million applied for regular state unemployment insurance (not seasonally adjusted) and 830,000 applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). Many headlines this morning are saying there were 1.4 million UI claims last week, but that’s not the right number to use. For one, it ignores PUA, the federal program that is serving millions of workers who are not eligible for regular UI, like the self-employed. It also uses seasonally adjusted data, which is distorted right now because of the way the Department of Labor (DOL) does seasonal adjustments.

Last week was the 19th week in a row that unemployment claims have been more than twice the worst week of the Great Recession. If you restrict this comparison just to regular state claims—because we didn’t have PUA during the Great Recession—this is the 19th week in a row that claims are more than 1.25 times the worst week of the Great Recession.

Republicans in the Senate just allowed the across-the-board $600 increase in weekly UI benefits to expire. They are proposing to (essentially) replace it with a $200 weekly payment. That $400 cut in benefits is not just cruel, it’s terrible economics. These benefits are supporting a huge amount of spending by people who would otherwise have to cut back dramatically. The spending made possible by the $400 that the Senate wants to cut is supporting 3.4 million jobs. If you cut the $400, you cut those jobs. This map shows the number of jobs that will be lost in each state if the extra $600 unemployment benefit is cut to $200.

Today’s release of GDP data underscores how wrong it is to cut those benefits. Second-quarter GDP collapsed at the fastest rate on record—and the second quarter includes the employment bounce-back of May and June. And because we did not put the public health measures in place necessary to successfully reopen, the coronavirus has spiked, and the economic improvement we saw in May and June has stalled, if not reversed. Now is not the time to cut benefits that are supporting jobs.

But what about the potential work disincentive of the extra $600? After all, the additional payment means many people have higher income on unemployment insurance than they did from their prior job. It turns out that the concern about the disincentive effect has been massively overblown. In fact, rigorous empirical studies show that any theoretical disincentive effect has been so minor that it cannot even be detected. For example, a new study by Yale economists found no evidence that recipients of more generous benefits were less likely to return to work. A case in point: In May and June—with the $600 in place—7.5 million people went back to work. And, about 70% of likely UI recipients who returned to work were making more on UI than their prior wage. Further, there are 14 million more unemployed workers than job openings, meaning millions will remain jobless no matter what they do. Slashing the $600 cannot incentivize people to get jobs that are not there. Even further, many people are simply unable to take a job right now because it’s not safe for them or their family, or because they have care responsibilities as a result of the virus. Slashing the $600 cannot incentivize them to get jobs, it will just cause hardship.

Slashing the $600 will also exacerbate racial inequality. Due to the impact of historic and current systemic racism, Black and brown communities are suffering more from this pandemic and have less wealth to fall back on. They will take a much bigger hit if the $600 is cut. This is particularly true for Black and brown women and their families, because in this recession, these women have seen the largest job losses of all.

Figure B combines the most recent data on both continuing claims and initial claims to get a measure of the total number of people “on” unemployment benefits as of July 25. DOL numbers indicate that right now, 33.8 million workers are either on unemployment benefits, have been approved and are waiting for benefits, or have applied recently and are waiting to get approved. But importantly, Figure B provides an upper bound on the number of people “on” UI, for two reasons: (1) Some individuals may be being counted twice. Regular state UI and PUA claims should be nonoverlapping—that is how DOL has directed state agencies to report them—but some individuals may be erroneously counted as being in both programs; (2) Some states are likely including some back weeks in their continuing PUA claims, which would also lead to double-counting (the discussion around Figure 3 in this paper covers this issue well).

Figure C shows continuing claims in all programs over time (the latest data are for July 11). Continuing claims are more than 28 million above where they were a year ago. However, the above caveat about potential double-counting applies here too, which means the trends over time should be interpreted with caution.