July jobless rate, payrolls rise as Pennsylvania seeks aid

• The Associated Press
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  The Associated Press (AP) is a U.S.-based not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s unemployment rose in July to remain well above the national rate, even as payrolls rebounded for another month from pandemic-driven shutdowns, the state reported Friday.

Meanwhile, Gov. Tom Wolf’s office also reported Friday that the state applied to the federal government for a new round of $300 in weekly unemployment benefits under a presidential order tapping into disaster relief aid. Wolf’s labor secretary said earlier this week that it would.

Still, Wolf, in a statement, urged Congress to instead extend the $600-a-week unemployment supplement that expired last month.

Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate was 13.7% in July, up a half-percentage point from June’s adjusted rate, the state Department of Labor and Industry said.

It had initially estimated June’s rate at 13%. The state’s rate pandemic-driven unemployment high exceeded 16% in April, the highest rate in more than four decades of record-keeping.

The national rate was 10.2% in July.

Payrolls had another big rebound in July, gaining back another 98,000 of the more than 1 million lost during the pandemic as Pennsylvania battled a resurgence of the virus in July after Wolf eased social distancing restrictions that allowed businesses to reopen.