This week’s claims data covers the first period following the September 4 expiration for most of the federal pandemic benefit enhancements. In California, initial claims in the regular program for the week of September 11 were down 4.4% from the revised results for the prior week. Nationally, initial claims were down more steeply at 8.2%. Claims in both California and the US were at their lowest levels since mid-March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic.

Claims levels remained relatively higher in California than in the other states. California comprised 23.6% of all claims nationally, nearly twice its population share of 11.9%. Even prior to the current pandemic, though, California was responsible for a significantly high share of total national claims, in part due to state policies emphasizing the use of government benefits for income maintenance as opposed to other states, which have instead focused more on jobs placement and resumption of earned income. In the pre-pandemic period, California’s share went from a low of 13.0% in 2009 as other states then experienced job losses during the Great Recession to a high of 18.7% in 2019.

While authority for the PUA program expired on September 4, California and other states are continuing to process claims for the previously eligible period. Data on these elements are shown in the table and charts below to indicate the overall effect but is no longer an indicator of current employment conditions.

As the federal enhancements neared expiration, the revised backlog numbers dropped sharply, primarily due to a drop in the number of pending claimant certifications.

The related call center delays, however, showed far less movement. In spite of reduced overall activity in the unique callers, the number of answered calls also fell, resulting in a rise back to an average of 10.7 tries required to reach EDD during the week of September 4.

In the most recent data from the EDD, California paid out a total of $172.6 billion in benefits under all the UI programs since the week of March 7, 2020, and through the week of September 4, 2021. The most current estimate from EDD is that up to $31 billion of unemployment benefits was paid out to fraudulent claims, consisting of $11 billion in known fraud and up to $20 billion in suspected fraud. Individual cases continue to unfold. Nationwide, current fraud total estimates range from $87 billion to $400 billion.

The most recent data from the US Department of Labor indicates California’s outstanding loans as of September 7 from the Federal Unemployment Account were $19.5 billion. Combining EDD’s May projections with the cash flow results to date, total debt is likely to reach around $30 billion by the end of 2022. This amount is far more than twice the peak of about $11 billion reached during the previous recession that began in 2008. That debt took 10 years to pay off through higher employment taxes imposed on businesses by both the state and federal governments.

The latest federal debt data, however, also illustrates the high degree to which this soaring debt was the result of pandemic policies followed in California and, at best, in a few other states. Currently, only 10 states and one territory (Virgin Islands) now have a debt to the federal fund. California constitutes 44% of the total.