Pennsylvania saw 400K jobless claims, labor leader says

HARRISBURG — More than 400,000 Pennsylvanians filed for unemployment compensation benefits last week amid a tidal wave of coronavirus-related business shutdowns, eclipsing the high-point during the recession a decade ago, the state’s top organized labor leader said Wednesday.

Rick Bloomingdale, president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the AFL-CIO, said Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration briefed him on last week’s figures as the union urges Wolf and lawmakers to expand unemployment compensation benefits to replace a full salary, rather than a half salary.

Wolf last Thursday ordered a statewide shutdown of all “non-life-sustaining” businesses in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus and buy time for the state’s health care system to expand staffing, equipment and bed space.

Even before that order, unemployment compensation filings in Pennsylvania and many other states had skyrocketed, underscoring how many businesses had already closed or shed workers.

A review of weekly data going back to 1987 shows a high-point of 61,000 in early 2010, when the effects of the Great Recession were taking hold.

The agency would not release last week’s figures to the Associated Press, saying the federal government has embargoed the figures until Thursday.