Have you received unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic?
- Yes, all of them
- Yes, part of them
- No, none of them
New Jersey has surpassed another grim milestone during the coronavirus outbreak, state officials said.
More than 1 million residents have applied for unemployment benefits between March 15 and June 6, receiving 6.2 billion in jobless payments -- the largest volume in the state's history.
All 70,000 residents who have exhausted their state benefits have qualified for federal pandemic emergency jobless payments, he said.
"It's by far the largest volume of payments... in a year, let alone three months,'' state Labor Department Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo said at a Thursday afternoon news briefing. That's more than 11 percent of the state's population of 9.2 million.
Last week, more than 23,166 New Jerseyans filed for unemployment benefits, the lowest weekly total since mid-March, Asaro-Angelo said.
Roughly 240,000 who applied for state benefits will not qualify for basic unemployment payments, Asaro-Angelo said, but the state will do everything it can to help those with unpaid claims.
It's been 100 days since the first positive coronavirus case in New Jersey, Murphy said.
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