Following passage of the second federal COVID assistance bill and stay-at-home orders in California, initial claims for the week of January 9 were up sharply in both the state and the rest of the US.

In California, initial claims in the regular program were up 12.8% over the prior week, while the reauthorized PUA claims grew 23.1%. In the national totals, regular claims were up 25.2%, while PUA claims rose 76.5%. Combined, total claims were up 14.3% in California and 32.8% in the US.

The latest week's results show upward movement in the trend for both California and the rest of the US, although the numbers were affected to some extent by the uncertainty regarding the PUA program over the previous weeks.

The prospects of further substantial reductions in claims remain limited by restrictions on reopening jobs in particular for lower wage workers. While the stay-at-home orders have begun to ease in a few counties, virtually all of the unemployed in the November labor force numbers remain in counties under the most restrictive Tier 1 status. The category of "unemployed," however, does not cover all those who are out of work in the current crisis. Many of those currently not working are not counted within the labor force for statistical purposes, including many caregivers who were forced at the last minute to decide between working and taking care of their children as schools in many cases delayed their reopening decisions and left these workers with few options. Under the official tabulation, there were 1.5 million unemployed Californians in November (seasonally adjusted). Using the pre-crisis employment level in February as a base, the number out of work is closer to 2.2 million.

The primary hopes of easing the state's restrictions and reopening businesses and jobs now center around a rapid roll-out of the vaccines approved towards the end of 2020. In the most current numbers, California continues to lag the other states in the percentage of doses administered, rising from the 3rd worst to only the 5th worst as of January 14. After the state's initial, heavily bureaucratic approach to determine eligibility needlessly slowed vaccine administration, a simpler age-related/risk criteria is now being used to speed the process.

The most recent backlog reports from EDD show significant progress in reducing the number of backlogged claims. While the overall numbers remain high-the delays continue to affect over half a million workers-the backlog in initial claims as of January 6 was down a third from the week prior. The continuing claims backlog was down somewhat more (36%). 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."