US jobless claims fall by 33,000 but remain historically high amid pandemic
Until the pandemic upended the operations of American companies, from factories to family diners, weekly jobless aid applications had never exceeded 700,000 in the U.S. Theyโve topped 700,000 for 26 consecutive weeks. An extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits ran out July 31, squeezing households that had depended on the beefed-up payments. President Donald Trump issued an executive order Aug. 8 providing a scaled-back version of the expanded jobless aid. โLayoffs remain widespread and a historically high number of individuals are still receiving some type of jobless benefits," Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a resarch report. The extra $600 in weekly jobless benefits didnโt replace all her lost income but helped.