Unemployment Claims In Montgomery County Jump Over 60 Percent

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD — The new coronavirus outbreak continues to have a huge impact on the economy, both locally and nationwide. On the week ending in April 4, Montgomery County saw a total of 15,751 people apply for unemployment benefits. That's an increase of roughly 67 percent from the week before. It's an even farther cry from this time one month ago, when just 195 people in the entire county applied for unemployment.

The new numbers mark Montgomery County as the county with the second highest number of employment applications last week, just shy of Baltimore County's record 16,791 applications. Across the state of Maryland, a total of 108,508 people applied for unemployment benefits that week. That's just shy of 1.8 percent of the states total population, and about 24,000 people more than the week before.

Nationwide, the numbers actually improved slightly. Around 6.6 million people applied for unemployment the week ending April 4. Analysts say it's still a staggering number, but it is almost a quarter of a million less applications than the week before that.

As unemployment numbers have spiked nationwide amid the coronavirus, there have been numerous reports of overcrowded websites and unusable phone lines slammed by the high volume of callers. Despite that, the state says they're doing all they can to keep up with the increased load, and the data shows that an overwhelming number of unemployment applicants have been able to do so on the state's website: about 15,000 Montgomery County applicants applied online compared to just 200 who did so over the phone.

How to apply for unemployment in Maryland

The state handles the majority of their unemployment claims on their website here. Applicants are held to several stipulations before their claim will be considered. They must:

• Have worked exclusively in Maryland for the past 18 months
• Have not worked for Federal Government in the last 18 months
• Worked for more than three different employers in the last 18 months
• Have filed for unemployment in another state.

Applicants will have to be able to provide a social security number, phone number and a mailing address. They will also have apply for at least three jobs a week and to keep a log of their job applications to maintain benefits.