Maine jobless claims continue to decline
(The Center Square) – New claims for unemployment benefits in Maine dropped again last week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly report.
There were 700 new applications for state unemployment benefits filed for the week that ended Aug. 28 – down by 55 from the previous week, the federal agency reported on Thursday.
The state also reported 95 new claims for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, nine fewer claims from the previous week, according to the report.
PUA and other federal unemployment programs created by Congress in response to the pandemic are set to expire this week.
Meanwhile, continuing state unemployment claims – which lag behind a week – totaled 6,842 in the week ending Aug. 21, a drop of 706 over the previous week.
Maine has distributed more than $2.4 billion in state and federal jobless benefits to about 380,000 jobless workers during the pandemic, according to state data.
The state’s unemployment rate remained steady at 4.9% in July, according to the Maine Department of Labor.
That’s down from a high of 9.1% last April but still higher than the state’s average 3% unemployment rate throughout 2019.
Nationally, there were 340,000 new claims filed in the week that ended Aug. 28, an increase of 14,000 from the previous week, according to the labor department.
Continuing unemployment claims, which lag behind a week, dropped by 160,000 to about 2.7 million nationally for the week that ended Aug. 21, That’s a new pandemic low, according to the federal agency.
Despite the improving labor conditions, an estimated 12.1 million Americans were still receiving state or federal jobless benefits in the week ending Aug. 14, the agency reported.
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