CDLE: First-time unemployment claims drop to 8,486 after last week’s spike

DENVER — An additional 8,486 people filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending July 18, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment said Thursday.

The figure is a drop from the 10,506 new claimants for regular benefits over the week prior, which may have been a temporary spike in new claims in the weekly dataset. In the same period, 9,233 self-employed and gig workers in Colorado applied for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which are federal benefits for workers traditionally not eligible for state-level unemployment. That amounts to an increase of more than 4,200 over the week.

That specific federal assistance, along with a $600 per week additional benefit for all claims, is due to expire at the end of the month unless Congress reauthorizes or replaces it with a different aid package. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to release a draft of the Senate Republicans’ proposal for another coronavirus aid package on Thursday, weeks after House Democrats passed its own $3 trillion bill.

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CDLE spokeswoman Cher Haavind said the department is waiting on guidance from the federal government in terms of future aid and is currently reaching out to claimants to warn them of the coming drop in their checks.

“For some, this will have a fairly dramatic impact because they have come to rely on that income,” she said.

The number of continuing claims was at 238,006 Coloradans in the week ending July 11, continuing a pattern where that rate has bounced between the 225,000 to 265,000 range every other week. The number of continuing federal claims declined to 90,490 last week from 93,079 in the week prior.

CDLE senior economist Ryan Gedney said the continuing claims number has been below 250,000 Coloradans for the past four weeks.

“While continuing claims are still historically high, we’re at least seeing a slight downward trend, which is positive,” he said.

Colorado distributed $80.9 million in regular unemployment-insurance payments in the week, a slight drop from $83.6 million the prior week.

Nationwide, the U.S. Department of Labor said 1.4 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits, an increase of 109,000 from the previous week and breaking a weeks-long trend of declining first-time claims. The department said the majority of these claims came from Florida, Georgia and California, three states that are in the midst of a COVID resurgence and, in the case of California, another round of business restrictions.

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