Another 870,000 workers filed for jobless benefits last week
“There’s nothing surprising in this,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s just an ongoing crisis in the labor market.”
The total number of people claiming unemployment insurance dropped to 26 million for the week ending Sept. 5 — a drop of more than 3.5 million.
The new claim numbers have come down gradually from their peak in March but remain at historically high levels.
And as weeks turn to months since the extra $600 unemployment benefits lapsed at the end of July, concerns grow about the long-term effects to the economy and the ability of the unemployed to pay basic bills with only state benefits.
“The data are so messed up that it’s important to not make too much of individual movements week to week, but the broad story really is we still have a lot of people needing new UI claims and that are depending on that,” Shierholz said.
