Maine unemployment claims continue to drop

(The Center Square) – First-time claims for unemployment benefits in Maine dropped again last week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly report.

There were 739 new applications for state unemployment benefits filed for the week that ended Aug. 21 – down by 82 from the previous week, the federal agency reported on Thursday.

The state also reported 104 new claims for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a decline of 30 claims from the previous week, according to the report. PUA and other federal unemployment programs are set to expire on Sept. 4.

Continuing unemployment claims – which lag behind a week – totaled 7,355 in the week ending Aug. 21, a drop of 583 over the preceding 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.

Meanwhile, the state’s unemployment system is still under attack by fraudsters and international criminal gangs who continue to file bogus jobless claims.

During the week ending Aug. 21, the state Labor Department said it rejected at least 88 initial jobless claims that were suspected to be fraudulent.

Nationally, there were 353,000 new claims filed in the week that ended Aug. 21, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week, according to the labor department.

Continuing claims, which lag a week, dropped by 3,000 to about 2.8 million nationally for the week that ended Aug. 14. That’s a new pandemic low, according to the federal agency.

An estimated 12 million Americans were still receiving state or federal jobless benefits in the week ending Aug. 7, the agency reported.

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