With the labor market showing new fragility, most states have yet to seek funds under President Trump’s stopgap plan to supplement weekly jobless pay, the New York Times reported. The Labor Department reported Thursday that new state unemployment claims jumped to 1.1 million last week, a sign that some employers continue to lay off workers in the face of the coronavirus pandemic while others remain reluctant to hire. “It definitely suggests that momentum in the recovery is slowing,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West. “The labor market is in the I.C.U., and it needs a shot of adrenaline in the form of federal aid.” There are no signs that kind of boost is imminent, however. Nearly 30 million people are drawing unemployment pay in some form, but a $600 weekly supplement to state benefits — credited with keeping millions afloat — expired at the end of July. Democrats and Republicans have been at an impasse on a new round of aid, and no action is expected before September. President Trump bypassed Capitol Hill this month to provide a $300 weekly supplement, drawn from federal disaster funds, to those receiving unemployment pay. But by Thursday, fewer than a quarter of the states had been approved for the program, and only Arizona had put it into action. Florida, New York and Texas have held off on applying as they seek guidance on the program’s rules and mull the technological needs for processing payments. Even states that intend to take part, like Pennsylvania, have raised doubts about whether it is workable. Trump’s executive action caps spending on the program at $44 billion, a figure that officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Labor Department said yesterday that should be enough to last four to five weeks. The funds are intended to be retroactive to Aug. 1, so recipients might be paid only through early September. The previous $600 weekly benefit, in place for four months, contributed $70 billion a month to the economy, or nearly 5 percent of total household income.
