Initial claims eased in California while dropping sharply in the rest of the US during the week of March 13.

In California, initial claims processed in the regular program were up only 1.7% compared to the prior week, while PUA claims dropped 25.1%. In the national totals, regular claims were up 3.4%, while PUA claims plunged 41.0% in large part due to a large drop in the Ohio numbers. Combined, total claims processed eased 5.2% in California but were down 14.3% in the US numbers.

The latest week’s results indicate that the overall trend remains highly variable in California, with the rest of the states beginning what may be a downward trend due to course corrections in the Ohio numbers.

The most recent tier allocations for the week of March 16 from Department of Public Health show the most improvements to date, with 23 counties moving from the highest restrictions and into Tier 2. Only 10% of the unemployed from January are in counties under the strongest state restrictions, but 88% are now in the 2nd most restrictive Tier 2.

The chart above is based on the 1.7 million workers officially classified as unemployed in January. Adding in those leaving the labor force raises the total closer to 2.6 million.

In the most recent data from Centers for Disease Control, California rose but still remained somewhat below the US average to rank 34th among the states in the share of vaccine doses being administered. Total vaccine supplies were up 2.3 million for the week (11.1% of the national gain), while the number of shots administered were up 2.3 million as well (12.9% of the national total). As of midday March 18, a total of 18.0 million shots have been administered in the state covering 9.1 million people, or 23.0% of the population.

With the EDD backlog reports now running a week behind the initial claims data, the backlogs in the week of March 10 saw only minor improvement. The backlog in initial claims was down only 0.3%. Continuing claims were down 7.2%, with the combined total down only 1.4%.

In the most recent data from EDD, California paid out a total of $128 billion in benefits under all the UI programs over the year beginning through the week of March 7, 2020 and continuing through the week of March 6, 2021. The most current estimate is that up to $31 billion of this amount was paid out to fraudulent claims, consisting of $11 billion in known fraud and up to $20 billion in suspected fraud.

The most recent data from US Department of Labor indicates California’s outstanding loans from the Federal Unemployment Account were $20.6 billion, or 39% of the total amount owed by 20 states. On a per capita basis, the amount owed by these states ranges from $0.87 in Virginia to $529.91 in New York. California is the second highest at $522.41.