Tennessee has been overwhelmed with a 25-fold jump in jobless claims over the past three weeks from about 250,000 Tennesseans filing initial claims for unemployment benefits after being laid off due to business shutdowns from the coronavirus.
“COVID-19 has caused many Tennesseans to lose their jobs and we are seeing record spikes in the number of applications for unemployment benefits,” Gov. Bill Lee said in a coronavirus crisis update this week. “It is a very difficult reality of what this pandemic has done.”
Tennessee’s unemployment office is scrambling to pay more than 100,000 claims this week and more are continuing to come into the state every day. As a result, Tennessee has yet to say when it will be able to add the extra $600 federal supplement to the state jobless benefit that Congress approved last month.
Georgia will begin paying the extra $600 a week payments to jobless persons next week, officials announced Tuesday. The added weekly payment – part of a massive $2.1 trillion spending package passed by Congress – will be attached to whatever payment a laid-off worker is due each week.
“We’ll be ahead of most of the other states,” said Kersha Cartwright, spokeswoman for the Georgia Labor Department. “We think we will be in the front pack.”