OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Unemployment payments since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic a year ago in Oklahoma have surpassed by nearly $1.5 billion the payments made during the past 10 years combined, the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission said Thursday.
More than $4.4 billion in jobless claims have been paid since March 2020, the OESC said.
“In the past year, OESC has paid out more in unemployment claims than in the entire previous decade, which was extremely challenging considering the unprecedented number of claims we were processing,” OESC director Shelley Zumwalt said.
The state reached a high of 14.7% jobless in April during a shutdown ordered by Gov. Kevin Stitt in an effort to stem the spread of the virus. The shutdown was lifted in May.
The most recent unemployment data showed a 5.3% jobless rate in December.
There were 895 newly reported virus cases reported Thursday for a total of 426,641, according to the state health department, and a total of 7,122 deaths due to COVID-19.
The seven-day rolling average of deaths in the state has risen from 27 daily to 38.5, according to data from Johns Hopkins University while the rolling average of new cases declined from 1,162 per day to 676.5.
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