Unemployment demands for the self-employed fell sharply. Or yes?

Self-employed workers and contract workers applied for unemployment benefits last week at half the level of the previous week, according to data from the Department of Labor released on Thursday.

This suggests a strong rebound, moving from the persistent, even rising, levels of recent weeks.

But that rebound probably didn’t happen. It was only produced on paper, experts say.

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Initial claims for unemployment assistance in pandemics (a temporary federal program that paid benefits to a concert and other workers not eligible for state aid) dropped to about 161,000 last week. The previous week, about 310,000 workers applied for PUA benefits.

Economists and unemployment experts offered some explanations as to why the fall occurred.

The sharp decline is likely to be related to the timing of a recent $ 900 billion Covid aid package, interstate administrative spending and worker behavior, they said.

It is also in a context of stubbornly high benefit demands in other unemployment programs. Overall, more than a million Americans applied for help last week.

“The 50% drop in initial claims has nothing to take on value,” Elizabeth Pancotti, a policy adviser to Employ America, a progressive group, said on Twitter.

The relief law extends the PUA program by 11 weeks through mid-March. It was scheduled to expire the day after Christmas. President Donald Trump signed the legislation in late December, after nearly a week of delay, but that signing is unlikely to occur in time for many workers to avoid at least a brief lapse of benefits.

“There was a lot of uncertainty about whether PUA would be extended, which could have affected the behavior of the claimants,” said AnnElizabeth Konkel, a job economist. dit.

Experts generally agree that the data is a mistake and that the states will modify the data in next week’s account, which would surely increase the count.

Many states (Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wyoming) did not report any initial claims data for the PUA program during the week ending Jan. 2. However, they reported a combined total of more than 100,000 the previous week, according to the Department of Labor.

Other states such as Illinois, Kentucky and Louisiana reported a total of just 75 claims, tens of thousands less than in late December.