Another 70,000 file for unemployment

The number of New Jerseyans that have applied for unemployment continued to rise last week as roughly 70,000 more residents filed claims.

That means roughly 1.1 million New Jerseyans have sought assistance after being furloughed or losing their jobs as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

Of those, more than 725,000 have begun collecting unemployment benefits, and the remainder are waiting for their claims to be processed.

“The USDOL has strict rules in place that we must follow when handling a claim in order to prevent fraud. Unfortunately, this also can lengthen the time it takes for claimants to receive benefits,” said Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo. “We are doing everything we can, working within federal guidelines, to get benefits to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. We can only do so much without jeopardizing billions of dollars of funding for the new federal benefits programs.”

Since mid-March, New Jersey has paid out roughly $2.7 billion in state and federal unemployment benefits.