Unemployment claims went up another 2.4 million last week

American workers filed 2.4 million unemployment claims last week, according to new numbers released this morning by the Department of Labor. These numbers, though still historically high, represent a drop-off from previous weeks of the pandemic. The total number of new jobless claims in the past nine weeks is over 38 million.

In recent weeks, states have begun paying out unemployment benefits to self-employed and gig workers, who are eligible for the first time for unemployment insurance. Those numbers, totaling in the hundreds of thousands, are not calculated in the weekly tally, but are reflected in data from individual states. 

In New York, more than half a million self-employed and freelance workers have received unemployment benefits under the new coronavirus expanded benefits program.