But filings jumped back above one million the following week, and stayed there last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. Unemployment filings have fallen sharply since early April, when 6.6 million applied for benefits in a single week. Roughly 30 million Americans are receiving benefits under various state and federal programs. The $600-a-week federal supplement to state unemployment benefits expired at the end of July, and efforts to replace it have stalled in Congress. Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist for the forecasting firm Oxford Economics, estimated that the lapse in extra unemployment benefits would reduce household income by $45 billion in August.

Source: bd News24 August 27, 2020 15:33 UTC