Trump will try to spin these unemployment figures as a win. Here’s why they’re not

Out-of-work Americans have more to worry about than the uncontrolled spread of a third nationwide Covid-19 outbreak: in states across the country, pandemic emergency unemployment extensions are due to expire before the end of the year. Despite growing unrest among those on the brink of homelessness and bankruptcy, the outgoing Trump administration has shown no interest in protecting households from the economic shock. 

On the surface, Thursday’s weekly unemployment claims report paints the same dreary economic picture prospective workers have faced since coronavirus upended regular life earlier this year. Nearly 750,000 people filed first-time unemployment claims last week, higher than Wall Street analysts estimated and triple the pre-pandemic rate of just 210,000 new weekly claims. 

More unemployed workers are also drawing on the government’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance programs, authorized by the bipartisan CARES Act in late March. Nearly five million Americans now receive funds from either the main PUA fund or the PUA emergency assistance program, another supplemental unemployment program.

Time is running out. Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, Congress’ widely praised $600 weekly unemployment supplement, ended on July 25 with no clear follow-up plan, putting 25 million Americans in financial peril. Without a new bipartisan stimulus plan, long-term unemployed workers face dwindling options and a looming financial cliff. 

Millions of Americans now reaching the end of their traditional state unemployment benefits have been spared bankruptcy by the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, or PEUC, another federal program that extended an additional 13 weeks of unemployment support to jobless workers on the brink. That program is set to expire on December 26. When PEUC benefits finally run dry, an additional 12 million Americans could face acute poverty and potential homelessness.

According to advocacy organization ExtendPUA, we’re already seeing this migration from traditional unemployment to extended and emergency programs in this week’s jobless claims figures. Though the total number of Americans receiving benefits declined by nearly 1 million to just over 20 million, over a third of that loss actually comes from people shifting from state unemployment to the 13-week extended federal PEUC program.

The flood of new and shifting claims has overwhelmed even states that prepared in advance.

“When a friend told me about PUA, I started calling New Jersey about that,” says Mike Pridgen, a 27-year-old who has faced a lifeless job market since the arrival of Covid-19 in March. “New Jersey just gave up on us. Even people who are eligible can’t get information about the programs. No acknowledgement, no confirmations. The phone lines just give you busy signals.”

Pridgen’s experience partially explains the continued drop in total unemployment benefits receipts as recorded by the Department of Labor: for every American who manages to find a job, many others simply exhaust their benefits or struggle to transition into another part of the Trump administration’s patchwork economic stimulus. 

These “invisible unemployed” suffer the most, since their disappearance from the unemployment roster can create a false impression that the economy is rapidly improving when in fact it is shedding people at the end of their state support. 

The share of Americans exhausting their traditional state unemployment and moving to emergency benefits has widened every week since September 5, when the first unemployed cohort emptied their state accounts. And even though we can all see this widening in the data, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has flatly refused to consider any coronavirus economic support before PEUC runs out in December.

If you’re growing numb to the army of unemployed facing financial ruin, let’s contextualize that number: The 20.38 million persistent unemployed in America as of last week is 13 times higher than before the pandemic. Many of those out of work are unable to return to their jobs due to the uncontrolled national spread of Covid-19. Good options ran out months ago. Out-of-work Americans are now forced to draw cards from a deck of bad outcomes.

Economic numbers are easy to spin. You’ll likely see Republicans crowing about how the “total unemployment number” has declined, a sure sign the promised Trump recovery is finally here. But we must remember that these numbers aren’t just theoretical data points. Those numbers represent real people, families, lives upended by a global pandemic made worse by unconscionable federal inaction. 

Thursday’s unemployment numbers show no change in the reality facing the United States: a growing number of Americans are exhausting their traditional benefits and facing a December 26 deadline for the expiration of emergency support. This problem will not disappear. Its solutions rest with a GOP unwilling or unable to summon the leadership necessary to protect  American families. 

Republicans rejected the call for bold leadership to prevent the unemployment crisis we now face. Unless the GOP summons a previously hidden resolve to extend unemployment benefits before the Christmas deadline, hundreds of thousands of American families could find themselves celebrating the holidays in a homeless shelter this year.

Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies