COVID-19 layoffs continues to hit hard as Mayor Coogan’s wife Judi St. Hilaire among the victims

While Congress continues to iron out a relief package, workers continue to get laid off.

In an interview with Fall River Reporter this afternoon, Mayor Paul Coogan stated that his wife, Judi St. Hilaire, was among those who have been recently laid off.

St. Hilaire is one of a few million Americans who has had the same fate due to COVID-19 and of no fault of their own.

Many of the new unemployed Americans are in this predicament due to businesses temporarily closing due to various orders made by governors throughout the country. Hopefully, many will return to their previous job once the country returns to normalcy, but due to an unpredictable outbreak, it is unclear when that will be.

Congress is in the process of passing a package that will put $1,200+ in the hands of many Americans, along with unemployment insurance, in hopes of curbing some of the losses those throughout the country are facing.

In the week ending March 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims in the country was 3,283,000, an increase of 3,001,000 from the previous week’s revised level. This marks the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims in the history of the seasonally adjusted series. The previous high was 695,000 in October of 1982.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending March 7 were in Alaska (2.8), New Jersey (2.6), Connecticut (2.4), Rhode Island (2.3), West Virginia (2.3), Illinois (2.2), Minnesota (2.2), Montana (2.2), Pennsylvania (2.2), and Puerto Rico (2.2).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending March 14 were in California (+14,221), Washington (+7,624), Nevada (+4,047), Pennsylvania (+3,212), and Massachusetts (+2,737), while the largest decreases were in Arkansas (-461), Alabama (-341), Puerto Rico (-171), West Virginia (-168), and Maine (-81