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Illinois accounted for half of the net national decrease in unemployment applications last week

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Illinois

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 411,000 for the week ended June 19, the Labor Department said. Data for the prior week was revised to show 6,000 more applications received than previously reported. The first increase since late April was blamed by economists on volatility in the aftermath of the May 31 Memorial Day holiday. […]

There were sizeable declines in California, Florida and Illinois.

Illinois’ weekly application number dropped by 3,605, which, as the headline states, was more than half of the net national decrease. Insured weekly unemployment, however, dropped only slightly from 202,222 to 200,037.

* Related…

* IDES: Unemployment Rates Down, Jobs Up in Every Metro Area Compared to May 2020: Over-the-year, the unemployment rate decreased in all 14 metropolitan areas; the areas with the largest unemployment rate decreases were the Rockford MSA (-11.9 points to 8.4%), the Carbondale-Marion MSA (-11.0 points to 5.1%) and the Elgin Metropolitan Division (-10.3 points to 5.3%). The Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights Metropolitan Division unemployment rate fell -7.9 points to 7.9%. The unemployment rate also decreased over-the-year in all 102 counties.

* Economic Policy Institute: Reforming unemployment insurance

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Jun 24, 21 @ 1:03 pm

Comments

Some of EPI’s unemployment insurance reforms are good ideas, but they never seem to understand that increasing employer payroll taxes like FUTA have a downward impact on wages. Increasing the UI taxable wage base cap from $7,000 to $142,000 as they suggested could cost thousands of dollars per employee.

Comment by City Zen Thursday, Jun 24, 21 @ 1:31 pm
To be precise, the federal FUTA Tax based on the first $142,000 paid would amount to $8,520 per employee per year.

For a business with 100 employees, $850,000.

Comment by Commonsense in Illinois Thursday, Jun 24, 21 @ 3:12 pm

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