IWD: New Initial Unemployment Claims and CARES Act Funding for Trust Fund Support

May 28, 2020

Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) announced today there were 14,586 initial unemployment claims filed by individuals for the week of May 17-23. That number is up by about 1,500 initial claims filed the prior week. $48.8 million was paid out of the trust fund for benefits. The number of continuing weekly unemployment claims was 180,679. Once again, the top sectors that saw the most initial claims filed included manufacturing (3,835); those not identified by industry including the self-employed, independent contractors, etc. (2,382); and health care and social assistance (1,399). IWD also recently announced Iowa’s unemployment rate was 10.2% for the month of April. Read IWD’s news release.

Of importance to ABI members, Gov. Reynolds commented at her press conference last Friday that money Iowa will receive from the federal CARES Act can be used to restore Iowa’s unemployment trust fund. This is positive news for employers as hundreds of millions of dollars have been doled out over the last two months due to the coronavirus. ABI is hopeful at least part of the CARES Act funding will be used to replenish the trust fund as that would help alleviate any potential unemployment tax increases on businesses. Read more from Radio Iowa.