In this report JPMorgan Chase Institute assembled a de-identified sample of 160,000 regular Chase customers who received unemployment insurance (UI) between 2014 and 2016 across 18 states to evaluate the role that UI plays in mitigating the financial impacts of job loss. Our results show that UI...

During the Covid-19 pandemic, unemployment insurance (UI) benefits have taken on an unprecedented role in the United States economy. In May 2020, total UI benefits were equal to 14.6 percent of total wages, more than five times the Great Recession peak. This is due to two factors: first, the...

We show that the largest increase in unemployment benefits in U.S. history had large spending impacts and small job-finding impacts. This finding has three implications. First, increased benefits were important for explaining aggregate spending dynamics—but not employment dynamics—during the...

How did the largest expansion of unemployment benefits in U.S. history affect household behavior? Using anonymized bank account data covering millions of households, we provide new empirical evidence on the spending and job search responses to benefit changes during the pandemic and compare...

Using an administrative dataset covering 2 million job loss events we analyze the impact of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on spending from 2008 to 2020. We find that during the Great Recession spending cuts after job loss were deeper than in the subsequent expansion, but in the COVID-19...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. government implemented the largest expansion in eligibility to federal Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits in history through the creation of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. This program expanded eligibility to self-employed...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress expanded unemployment insurance (UI) benefits in three ways. First, it increased the level of benefits through a $600 and then a $300 per week supplement. Second, it expanded the pool of workers who are eligible to receive UI via the Pandemic...