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* Voice of America…
Another 787,000 U.S. workers filed for unemployment compensation last week, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday, as the national government starts to make $300-a-week extra payments to the jobless on top of less generous state benefits.
The newest weekly claims total was basically unchanged, down 3,000 from Christmas week in late December, even as the coronavirus crisis continues to stress the American labor market 10 months after the pandemic swept into the country.
The latest weekly total is consistent with the number of claims over recent months. The weekly figures are well below the 6.9 million record number of claims filed late last March as the pandemic took hold in the U.S. but remain above the highest pre-pandemic level in records going back to the 1960s.
* CBS 2…
The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) reported 45,387 new unemployment claims were filed during the week of Dec. 27 in Illinois, a 59% decrease from the week before.
For comparison, during the same timeframe last year, 11,779 people filed claims in Illinois. That’s a 285% increase.
Since early March, CBS 2 has tracked more than 2.6 million total claims in the state.
* Meanwhile, in Colorado…
Officials with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment said Thursday they believe many of the 41,439 regular unemployment claims filed the week after Christmas were fraudulent.
The department said that fraud was the most likely cause for the abnormalities in the number of initial claims, which jumped by more than 16,000 from the week prior, but that other factors included a change to a new quarter, seasonal filings and the reopening of claims.
* WUIS…
In a separate press conference Wednesday, Pritzker said IDES has not experience any sort of data breach, but explained fraudsters have been able to apply for unemployment benefits using Illinoisans’ personal information, which could have been acquired in massive data breaches in the last several years, like 2017’s Equifax breach.
“There’s not been a hack detected in our systems,” Pritzker said “People are using information that they’ve garnered from other hacks that have occurred, sometimes a couple of years ago.”
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Jan 7, 21 @ 3:10 pm
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I got the unrequested/hacked Key Bank IDES unemployment card, talked to Key Bank and they said I don’t have any liability. Froze my credit, changed passwords, called IDES, said they will call me back in a few weeks about 3-4 weeks ago. Sad performance on the state’s part.
Comment by James the Intolerant Thursday, Jan 7, 21 @ 3:30 pm
New US Labor Secretary promising choice.
Comment by Amalia Thursday, Jan 7, 21 @ 3:49 pm
Most people just don’t understand regarding these types of fraudulent claims.
Have you ever applied for a credit card or any kind of financing online? Or opened a bank account online? For any similar activity, the verification questions are the same used by credit reporting bureaus and use information from credit bureaus. The massive breach from Equifax exposed this type of verification information, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to automatically reject claims as they are filed. However, many of such fraudulent claims are recognized via the employer verification.
Comment by Precinct Captain Thursday, Jan 7, 21 @ 3:50 pm
“Sad performance on the state’s part.”
How is that sad performance on the state’s part? This was part of a national network of fraudsters. I was incredibly impressed with the state on this. I got my card and letter from the state on the same day. Then 48 hours later, without having notified them, I got another letter telling me that my claim had been identified as fraud and they would be disregarding it. That means they figured out it was fraud almost immediately and disallowed it within a day or two. Quite impressive in my book. Same thing happened to my wife (who has a different last name).
Comment by Chicago Cynic Thursday, Jan 7, 21 @ 3:54 pm
BTW, I find it sad that nobody is commenting on the fact that we had a 59% decrease. This is a really good thing!
Comment by Chicago Cynic Thursday, Jan 7, 21 @ 3:54 pm
Unfortunately the State paid out about $1800 on a fraud complaint in my name even though I promptly reported it. Not sure how that could be done without an activated debit card but that is what makes the fraudsters so good. My guess is this significant reduction is partly the result of better fraud detection systems put in place by IDES. Good on them.
Comment by Original Rambler Thursday, Jan 7, 21 @ 4:26 pm
=== the fact that we had a 59% decrease. This is a really good thing! ===
Illinois lost 417 K jobs over the last year, as of November.
The big drop in unemployment claims could be due a few factors, a massive wave of job creation in the midst of a pandemic and industry shutdowns probably is not it.
Comment by Thomas Paine Thursday, Jan 7, 21 @ 4:40 pm