NJ jobless claims fall for second consecutive week

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Despite the COVID-19 pandemic dragging into its fifth month in New Jersey, the number of unemployment claims dropped for the second week in a row, according to the state labor department.

Thursday’s numbers seem to largely mirror national trends, where the number of new jobless claims fell below 1 million for the first time since March, even as the pandemic pushes statewide and national unemployment to record-high levels not seen since the Great Depression: 16.6 percent in New Jersey.

Last week, 13,003 New Jerseyans filed for unemployment, according to Thursday morning data from the U.S. Department of Labor. That marks a 17 percent drop from the 16,573 New Jerseyans who filed for jobless aid the prior week, which itself was a 41 percent drop from the 28,063 state residents who filed for jobless aid in the last week of July.

“It’s a relief to see initial unemployment claims decline for two consecutive weeks. But with hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans still out of work, or being called back only partially, our workforce needs continued, sustained economic relief,” Labor and Workforce Development Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo said in a Thursday statement.

Although measures enacted by Gov. Phil Murphy ordering businesses to close their doors, banning public gatherings and restricting most travel, show many signs they contained COVID-19, the conditions have led to one of the worst economic recessions in American history.

The week ending March 28, 206,253 New Jerseyans filed for unemployment, followed by 214,836 residents the following week.

Those restrictions have been gradually rolled back since June 15, before Murphy issued a pause on any further reopenings in early July to prevent a potential new outbreak.

“The virus is still out there, people are still hesitant to return to their normal,” said Michael Merrill, an economist at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations.

“At some point the return to work is going to top out, and we’re going to be stuck there until we can figure out how” to take control of the virus.

Almost 1.5 million New Jerseyans filed for unemployment since March 16, when the state shutdown orders went into effect. In the five months since then, the state paid out $13.7 billion in federal and state jobless benefits, according to data from the state labor department, with more than $8 billion from the $600 federal pandemic unemployment assistance supplement.

The week of July 25 was the last the additional $600 in compensation, a feature of the landmark $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, was paid out to state residents. Still, roughly 685,000 state residents were paid out a combined $515 million in federal benefits in the last week.

Amid a congressional stalemate, President Donald Trump last weekend signed an executive order extending the pandemic unemployment assistance supplements, slashing the payment from $600 to $300 with a $100 match from individual state governments. Following the move, Murphy warned that New Jersey “can’t afford” to make the $100 match, and that it could cost the state upward of $1.725 billion that it doesn’t have.

“If the solution calls for states to create a new program we can’t afford to begin with … I cannot sit here and say right now New Jersey could afford to participate in this program,” Murphy said at a COVID-19 press briefing Monday in Trenton.

The added $600 in weekly benefits made up the lion’s share of state unemployment aid paid out over the past five months, clocking in at $8.3 billion.

Another $4.1 billion came from the state’s unemployment trust fund, $1 billion came from a federal program for freelancers and independent contractors, $331 million came from a federal unemployment extension and $24 million from the state unemployment extension.