Ohio saw more than 46,000 people file for unemployment benefits last week, according to numbers released by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS).
This marks the first time Ohio’s unemployment weekly claims have been under 50,000 when the coronavirus hit the state two months ago, and Gov. Mike DeWine shut down the economy.
Even though last week’s data reached this milestone, the weekly filings from the week ending May 16 only went down by 5,000 claims from the week ending May 9.
Ohioans asking for government assistance should continue to go down as of last weekend, 90 percent of Ohio’s economy had opened up, the Associated Press reported.
Since mid-March, more than 1.2 million people have filed for unemployment benefits in Ohio. Nationally, America has seen 38.6 million people claim unemployment during the same nine-week span.
Ohio has accounted for three percent of America’s unemployment benefit claims during this time period.
According to WBNS, ODJFS has given benefits to 619,000 Ohioans totaling over $2.8 billion. This accounts for 52 percent of people who asked for government assistance.
ODJFS continues to deal with hackers trying to infiltrate its system. This time, around 24 people who claimed unemployment benefits had their personal information exposed during a data breach.
The agency announced on Wednesday that it was able to fix the problem within the first hour of discovering the hack. ODJFS said that “no evidence of any widespread data compromise.”
Earlier this month, ODJFS dealt with another hack that sent junk data to part of the agency’s website where employers “can report employees who quit or refuse work when it is available due to COVID-19.”
The agency stopped the hack from creating false claims in its system.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of Star News Digital Media. If you have any tips, email Zachery at [email protected]. Follow Zachery on Twitter @zacheryschmidt2.
Photo “People Filing Out Paperwork” by Micah Sitting. CC BY 2.0.
