Another 34,410 workers filed for unemployment last week as the number of new claims continues to decrease, state officials announced Thursday.
Nearly 1.17 million New Jerseyans have now filed for unemployment benefits and the state has paid out more than $4.3 billion in weekly benefits to those who have lost work or hours on the job due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Thursday’s figures were the lowest total of new claims in a given week since COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, began ravaging the state in March. A statewide shutdown of businesses deemed non-essential remains the primary driver of the soaring unemployment totals.
Although the totals of unemployment claims have gotten steadily less each week, the state labor department reported that 1,165,249 have claimed a loss of work.
“It’s not a sign of improvement, it’s just a sign that there’s fewer people left,” said Michael Merrill, a professor and economist at Rutgers University.
Rather, he said, the high total of out of work New Jerseyans points to a long and slow recovery, especially if the federal government doesn’t step in with more robust aid.
“We can expect an economy that is not what it used to be, maybe not even three-fourths of what it used to be," Merrill said. "That is likely to be our new normal.”
Since mid-March, New Jersey has seen an unprecedented spike in unemployment claims, caused in part by state orders that businesses close or drastically curtail their operations to slow the spread of the virus.
Movie theaters, gyms and casinos were the first to go, ordered closed in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. Shopping malls followed and Gov. Phil Murphy ordered barber shops, salons, nail salons and tattoo parlors closed a few days later. On March 21, Murphy officially ordered all non-essential businesses closed.
In the two weeks that followed, the state saw a record number of unemployment claims, more than 200,000 each week.
The biggest job losses have been in casinos, retail, food service, restaurants and airlines. Restaurants were ordered to close their dining rooms and permitted to operate for delivery and carryout only.
But now, as Murphy has begun to guide the state towards reopening, the number of unemployed remains high. Several protests calling for a more rapid re-opening have been held, and State Police last week clashed with the owner of a gym that attempted to open in spite of the order to remain closed.
Merrill said returning the state’s economy to how it was at the start of 2020 won’t be possible, even as the Murphy administration makes moves in that direction.
"The only thing that’s being talked about is, ‘We want to reopen the economy carefully,’ he said. “What I hear in that is, ‘We’re going to reopen the economy as it was,’ and I don’t see that happening.”
Since the spikes in claims, residents have complained of waiting weeks, even months, to receive benefits and the state has been plagued by a backlog and a decades-old computer system in bad need of an upgrade. State Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo said in a statement Thursday that his department was making strides to reduce the backlog.
“We know how tough it has been for these claimants to try to stretch their last paycheck, or have to borrow money, or go to a food pantry, or delay paying their rent," Asaro-Angelo said in the statement. “We are trying to resolve their claim issues and pay all eligible claims quickly.”
Weekly unemployment claims are one of clearest, and earliest, measures of the coronavirus’ impact on New Jersey’s economy. Thursday’s figures come as nearly 157,000 people have tested positive and more than 11,000 have died.
For the month of April, the figures translated to an unemployment rate of 15.3% for the state. Last April that figure was a mere 3.4%.
Some economists have estimated that rate could climb to 25%, meaning one out of every four people who would be working are off the job. To put that number in context, unemployment during the Great Depression peaked at nearly 25 percent and at a hair under 10 percent during the Great Recession.
New Jersey workers who are eligible for unemployment may receive 60 percent of their wages, up to $713, for up to 26 weeks.
Recipients will also receive $600 in additional Pandemic Unemployment Assistance payments from the federal coronavirus stimulus. And those who exhaust their 26 weeks of benefits could also be eligible for an additional 13 weeks of payments under the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program the state said last week. That program opened on Sunday.
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J. Dale Shoemaker may be reached at jshoemaker@njadvancemedia.com.