Regular state unemployment benefits dropped more than $1 million this week, breaking a string of 16 consecutive weekly increases in the payout from Idaho’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund.
The Department of Labor paid just under $9.2 million in benefits to more than 34,000 jobless workers. Another 5,800 workers received more than $1.5 million in federal extended benefits. While the decline from the record $10.2 million in regular state benefits paid the previous week was expected, it remained the second highest weekly payout on record and kept the trust fund under pressure.
Benefit payments typically drop in the second or third weeks of January before climbing again for the rest of the winter until seasonal employment in natural resources, construction and some other sectors can resume.
The 16 straight weeks of rising payouts – the longest stretch since the early 1990s – had raised some concern about whether the pattern would hold.
In 2008, Idaho paid out a record $210 million in regular unemployment benefits and another $22 million in federal extended benefits. That was followed by more than $28 million being paid out in regular state benefits during just the first three weeks of 2009. Escalating unemployment has reduced the balance in the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund from nearly $320 million in November 2007 to under $170 million now.
At the same time, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics revised Idaho’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for December down two-tenths from last week’s forecast to 6.4 percent. That was seven-tenths higher than the November rate and remained the highest rate for Idaho in over 20 years. The rate in December 2007 was 2.7 percent. The national unemployment rate for December was 7.2 percent.
Even with the revisions, the state economy’s continued slide triggered additional federal extended benefits for jobless workers who have already exhausted their state benefits. Beginning next week, people already receiving up to 20 weeks of additional federally financed benefits will become eligible for six more weeks. That means anyone who exhausted their state benefits before March 28 will be eligible for the same amount of federally financed benefits if they have not found work.
The government made slight adjustments to the forecast figures, increasing the number of people who were working in December by 500 to 710,700 and reducing those without jobs by 1,100 to 49,000. That still meant nearly 29,000 more people were out of work than in December 2007, when just over 20,000 were jobless.
Even with the modest revision, the Idaho economy lost another 13,000 jobs from November to December, leaving the state with over 28,000 fewer nonfarm jobs than it had in December 2007.
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