By Matt Bruenig, Jacobin

Pandemic unemployment benefits expire today, leaving 10 percent of the US population with dramatically less household income. The Department of Labor released its weekly unemployment insurance (UI) report on Friday. This is the last report before pandemic unemployment benefits are eliminated across the entire country today, September 6, and thus gives us the best indicator of how many people will be affected by the cuts.

In the report, we learn that 9.2 million people are currently receiving benefits from either the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program or the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. Another 0.1 million filed an initial claim for PUA in the last week. According to the Census Household Pulse Survey, the average household that is receiving UI benefits has 3.8 members in it. This means that around 35 million people (10 percent of the US population) live in households that are scheduled to lose unemployment income today.

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Economic Justice