Montgomery County residents have filed 77,269 initial unemployment claims since the first week of March. Last week alone, 10,391 initial claims were filed.
The number of claims decreased by about 46% since the week before, when there were 19,192 claims. The higher number in the previous week was partially caused by two new federally enacted unemployment programs.
The programs — Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) — were created through a federal stimulus bill.
Initial claims have also been high over the last two reported weeks because the state launched its new BEACON One-Stop application, which allows residents to apply for all state and federal unemployment claims in one place. It opened on April 24.
Of the 10,391 initial claims filed last week, 7,133 were initial regular unemployment claims., according to data released by the Maryland Department of Labor on Thursday morning.
The rest were 3,168 claims filed through PUA and 90 claims filed through PEUC.
Statewide, 65,805 people filed initial claims last week.
On Tuesday, the state Labor Department announced that it had paid 327,649 unemployment claims during the pandemic. About 90% of residents received payments within 21 days, a release stated.
Since Saturday, 56,000 claims totaling $165 million were paid.
“The unprecedented volume of new claims, and constantly changing guidelines from the federal government, have presented a series of challenges not only for our department, but for unemployment programs across the nation,” Tiffany Robinson, the state’s labor secretary, said in the release.
“While we are making progress, there are still many frustrated Marylanders waiting to receive benefits. Please know that we are listening. We know what needs to be improved, and we are focused on getting the job done. We will not be satisfied until every Marylander gets the relief they need and deserve.”
In all of 2019, the department received 214,475 claims. More than double that figure has been filed since March.
The average number of weekly claims is usually about 2,000. During the pandemic, multiple weeks have had more than 100,000 claims filed.
Starting March 20, the department placed a 10-week temporary exemption from the work search requirement for individuals receiving unemployment benefits. This week, the department extended the exemption to the length of the state of emergency plus 30 days.
Briana Adhikusuma can be reached at briana.adhikusuma@moco360.media.
