Unemployment aid applications fall a second straight week in Florida. Will it continue?
Unemployment assistance applications in Florida declined for the second straight week, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday. But rising COVID-19 case counts are already giving some economists pause that the improving economic picture may be imperiled.
For the week ending Oct. 24, new assistance claims in Florida fell from 40,070 to 30,874. It’s the lowest weekly figure seen since March, although some of the decline is due to applicants exhausting their 12 weeks of state assistance.
Workers in this category are eligible for an additional 13 weeks of federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation. Florida does not report a continuous tally of workers accepting this assistance. But according to the state’s unemployment dashboard, 646,565 individual PEUC claimants have been paid to date.
Nationally, new assistance claims fell from 791,000 to 751,000 on the week.
“The improvement likely won’t continue if, as we expect, the number of COVID infections continues to rise rapidly,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, in a note to clients. “Jobless claims have risen in most of the states which have reported the fastest increase in cases over the past few weeks, because rising case numbers scare people into staying at home, depriving services firms of revenue.”
Shepherdson said data from Homebase, a small business services group that tracks employment, is already starting to show declining employment among small U.S. businesses.
“We’re struggling to imagine that this could continue without the claims numbers responding.”
Ryan Severino, chief economist at property and investment services group JLL, said higher cases could mean reinstating more movement restrictions. In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has agreed to reimpose an indoor dining ban.
“Even more modest [restriction] measures could produce headwinds for the U.S. economy if some businesses must operate at limited capacity, restraining aggregate supply,” Severino said in a note to clients.
This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 9:04 AM.
