Jobless benefits drop

The number of Idaho unemployment insurance payments dropped below 10,000 the first week in September, the first time weekly benefit payments have been that low since the end of November 2007.

The Idaho Department of Labor’s weekly jobless benefit report showed 6,774 regular benefit payments for just under $1.66 million and another 2,874 federal extended benefit payments for $639,000 for 9,648 payments totaling $2.3 million.

Payments in the final week of August totaled 10,679 for more than $2.5 million.

The last time payments fell below 10,000 was the final week of November 2007 when 9,269 payments totaling just under $2.3 million were made. There were no federal extended benefits at that time, and both payments and amounts were trending up as the economy slowed toward the recession, which officially began at the end of 2007.

Since 2007, the department has paid nearly $2.4 billion in state and federal unemployment benefits to hundreds of thousands of Idaho workers.

At the depth of the recession in March 2009, an average of 50,000 workers a week received $54 million in state and federal benefits.

Idaho’s unemployment rate was 3.3 percent the last time benefit payments were under 10,000. The rate hit 8.8 percent in the closing months of 2010 and fell to 6.1 percent this past spring before it began rising again, reaching 6.6 percent in July.