AUGUSTA — For the week ending June 26, the Maine Department of Labor recorded about 1,400 initial claims filed for state unemployment insurance, and 700 initial claims filed for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA).

Most of the PUA initial claims are due to already existing claimants moving from the regular state unemployment program to federal PUA, a news release stated. These numbers represent claim applications; claims are then reviewed for eligibility and legitimacy.

In total, approximately 1,600 people were filing an initial claim or reopening their unemployment claim.

Overall unemployment continued claims filed each week continue to steadily decline, down roughly 600 claims from the previous week.

About 9,400 weekly certifications, or continued claims, were filed last week for state unemployment, with another 11,000 weekly certifications filed under PUA. In addition, about 15,300 weekly certifications were filed for the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program. Weekly certifications must be filed by claimants every week in order to continue to receive unemployment benefits.

For the same time period, roughly 3,300 unemployment claimants reported having partial earnings for the week. In many cases, people receiving unemployment benefits can work part-time and still retain the $300 weekly Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) offered by Congress through September 4, 2021. More information, including a walk-through video and “partial benefit calculator,” can be found here: maine.gov/unemployment/pub/

Between March 15, 2020 and June 26, 2021, the Maine Department of Labor has paid out over $2.3 billion in federal and state unemployment benefits. Approximately $1.7 billion of the $2.3 billion was paid through federal unemployment programs.

The Department has handled approximately 266,050 initial claims for the state unemployment program and 113,000 initial claims for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. Note: Claims do not equal the number of unique unemployment claimants. There have been over 4.2 million weekly certifications filed.

The Maine Department of Labor continues its careful review of all claims, and to evolve its fraud prevention techniques.

During the week ending June 26, the Department cancelled 128 initial claims and nine weekly claims suspected to be fraudulent.