For another week, the complaints were almost four times the level of the same period last year, before the pandemic paralyzed the country. This again highlights that the job recovery is not in good shape, as we have approached a year since the pandemic hit the United States.
Still, it was a considerable reduction in claims from the previous week and the first drop below the 800,000 mark since the beginning of the month. The number of claims from last week was revised to 812,000, still several times the number during the same period last year,
In addition to regular unemployment benefits, 348,912 workers applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which is available to people as self-employed or temporary workers.
Together, 1.2 million workers applied for benefits for the first time without adjusting for seasonal changes. It was a modest improvement over the previous week, with around 78,200 fewer complaints.
The continuing claims, which count people who have applied for help for at least two consecutive weeks, reached 4.6 million. This fell by 4.8 million.
In fact, there have been improvements in almost all categories of benefits. Overall, 17.8 million Americans received some form of government aid in the week ending January 16.
Only one category increased that week: federal employees and workers receiving extended benefits beyond the limit of other benefits available to them.