Drew Dixon
Florida workers seeking pandemic-related help filed 67,000 more jobless claims in the past week, according to Florida Department of Economic Opportunity data.
There were a total of 4.97 million coronavirus-related unemployment claims in Florida as of Monday, up from 4.9 million the week before. This week’s tally marks a distinct increase in jobless claims because of the pandemic.
The previous week saw 59,000 new claims and the first full week of December generated about 55,000 new claims. Those were the lowest marks for new weekly claims seeking unemployment assistance since the pandemic began in March.
While this week’s figure shows a notable increase in new COVID-19-related jobless claims, that figure is still well under the wild amount of claims filed during the first few months of the outbreak. Spring months into summer saw some weeks where as many as 500,000 Floridians were filing unemployment claims due to businesses laying off workers or closing entirely because of the pandemic.
Those figures started to ease, particularly in September when the weekly number of jobless claims dipped below 70,000 on a regular basis. There was a brief jump in October with one week reaching 108,000 new claims but November saw the numbers start to decrease again.
Out of the total number of claims, 4.74 million were unique claims in the past week, meaning they were not duplicates. Out of those, 4.65 million have been processed, or about 99.2%.
About 2.15 million claims have been paid, amounting to 97.2% of the eligible claims.
The cost of the pandemic-related unemployment help in Florida keeps churning toward the $20 billion mark. The total tab for the federal and state jobless benefits due the coronavirus has added up to $19.54 billion.
Most of that price tag has been covered by federal dollars. The federal pandemic unemployment compensation and lost wage assistance program has accounted for $12.26 billion of the cost.
Federal pandemic emergency unemployment compensation funds have covered another $1.78 billion and federal pandemic unemployment assistance has picked up another $1.68 billion.
Florida is contributing to some of the cost of pandemic unemployment relief. The state’s reemployment assistance program has covered about $3.82 billion.
