Weekly US jobless claims jump to 885,000 as Biden’s predicted ‘dark winter’ sets in

The weekly rate of new applicants for unemployment benefits in the US has climbed back up to 885,000, a stark reminder that the country is still battling a pandemic-induced recession that may get worse in the coming months.

With President-elect Joe Biden warning Americans of a “very, very, very dark winter” ahead, citing the steady increase in new Covid cases, hospitalisations, and deaths since mid-October, the economic fallout has persisted.

The number of new jobless claims increased by 23,000 from 862,000 the previous week, the US Labor Department revealed in a Thursday press release.

Before the pandemic, the new unemployment claims number hovered around 225,000 applicants per week – just a quarter of the current rate.

The overall number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits has dropped precipitously since Covid crashed the economy in the spring. By 12 December, 5.5 million Americans were enrolled in traditional state unemployment benefit programmes, down from almost 23 million following the height of the pandemic in May.

That dwindling overall jobless claims number indeed indicates that millions of Americans went back to work after local leaders and governors gradually began lifting regional lockdown measures in the spring. But it also reflects how millions of people’s benefits may have simply expired without them finding new work. Traditional state unemployment benefits lapse after six months.

The raw US unemployment rate stood at 6.7 per cent at the end of November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s down from April’s high-water mark of nearly 15 per cent.

Congress is on the cusp of another Covid bailout package worth roughly $900bn that would extend a pandemic-era unemployment benefits programme giving laid-off workers a $300-per-week federal supplement. The package would also include another round of stimulus checks for most Americans – although these would be worth between $600 and $700 instead of the $1,200 taxpayers received in the spring – and unlock hundreds of billions more in federal loans for small- and medium-sized businesses.

“Fingers crossed, we may come up with a ... Covid relief bill today,” Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the chamber, said in a floor speech from the Capitol on Thursday.

Senate leaders Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer as well as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy have met several times in recent days to expedite negotiations on a Covid relief bill that lawmakers hope will soften the economic blow from pandemic chaos during Mr Biden’s predicted “dark winter”.

The deadline to fund the US government is this Friday unless the House and Senate pass another so-called continuing resolution ("CR" in Washington-speak) extending last year’s funding levels until they reach a long-term agreement for fiscal year 2021.

Any Covid agreement, as well as some other stray bills, are expected to ride alongside an omnibus government appropriations package.