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Nearly 3,000 Mainers filed new unemployment claims for the week that ended Dec. 5, a five-month excessive, based on information launched by the Maine Division of Labor on Thursday.
The preliminary state claims are up from the 1,927 filed the earlier week. One other 12,600 individuals filed continued claims with the state.
As well as, 1,200 individuals filed preliminary claims and 16,800 filed continued claims for the federal Pandemic Unemployment Help program. The division attributed these will increase to individuals who exhausted state prolonged or federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation advantages.
In complete, about 3,700 Mainers filed an preliminary declare or reopened their unemployment declare final week, the division stated.
The information comes someday after Gov. Janet Mills stated Maine will supply a one-time, $600 payment to employees receiving unemployment earlier than the tip of the yr to partially compensate for the tip of federal unemployment advantages. Greater than 30,000 Mainers are anticipated to lose unemployment advantages the day after Christmas except Congress passes one other stimulus package deal.
The division stated it paid out greater than $1.7 billion in federal and state unemployment advantages between March 15 and Dec. 5.
Nationally, 853,000 individuals filed preliminary jobless state claims for the week ended Dec. 5, up 137,000 from the earlier week, based on the U.S. Department of Labor. One other 427,609 filed for federal Pandemic Unemployment Insurance coverage.
“Layoffs seem like rising, in step with the resurgent virus,” Heidi Shierholz, senior economist on the liberal Financial Coverage Institute, wrote in a blog post. She stated final week was the thirty eighth straight week that complete preliminary claims nationwide exceeded these within the worst week of the Nice Recession from 2007 to 2009.
Congress remains to be making an attempt to hash out a brand new stimulus plan earlier than the tip of the yr. A bipartisan plan put ahead by Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King of Maine and others proposes extending the two federal unemployment programs that are set to expire and which are at present supporting greater than 30,000 Maine employees. The plan would supply an extra $300 per week to all unemployment recipients. The modifications can be retroactive to Dec. 1 and run by the tip of March.
Shierholz argued for unemployment advantages as a fantastic stimulus to the economic system, saying reinstating and increasing pandemic unemployment insurance coverage would create or save greater than 5 million jobs in america.
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