Initial claims for the week of December 19 declined from the prior week’s rise, but returned to the generally upward trend experienced since the first week of November.

In California, initial claims in the regular program were down 23.5% over the prior week, contributing heavily to the 7.7% drop for the US overall. PUA claims were largely unchanged with a dip of 2.4% in the state, but showed a stronger drop of 12.5% for the US. Combined, total claims were down 19.4% in California and 9.3% in the US.

The relative level of initial claims within the state remain above the rest of the nation.

The most recent backlog reports from EDD show relatively little progress in reducing the backlogs, with the overall numbers largely unchanged to date through December. The backlog in initial claims as of December 18 was up 3.9% from the week prior. The continuing claims backlog was down only 0.4%.

Backlogged initial claims are defined as those “applications for benefits that take more than 21 days to issue a first payment or to disqualify the individual, regardless of if the claimant or EDD need to take some kind of action.” Backlogged continuing claims are defined as a “subset of all individuals who received at least one payment and are now waiting more than 21 days for further processing of payment or disqualification.”