On Thursday, June 11th, the Georgia Department of Labor announced that they are extending unemployment benefits for those who qualify. Under the CARES Act, people who qualify for unemployment insurance (UI) are entitled to state unemployment compensation plus $600 per week from the federal government for 13 weeks. As UI benefits due to COVID-19 are approaching the 13-week mark, Georgia is extending state unemployment benefits for another 13 weeks. This will give some support to those needing it, as the economy reopens and people get back to work. So far, people in Georgia have received over $5.4 billion in federal and state unemployment benefits.

This week marked the fourth time in five weeks that the initial unemployment claims went down in Georgia. For the week ending 6/6, there were 135,254 initial unemployment claims filed. This is down 13,909 or 9.3% from last week. Despite the positive jobs report this week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced that the U.S. has a long road of economic recovery ahead.

The Unemployment Claims Monitor by the Atlanta Fed provides an overview of initial and continuing jobless claims with a breakdown by demographic for each state. It can be found here.

Sources:
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/georgia-department-labor-extend-some-unemployment-benefits-13-weeks/QAB4LJCQBFH6FC6MGLC4CNASWE/
https://fox28media.com/news/local/unemployment-benefits-extended-for-some-georgia-residents
https://www.wsj.com/articles/unemployment-benefits-weekly-jobless-claims-coronavirus-06-11-2020-11591819263