photo by: Institute for Policy & Social Research/University of Kansas

Projected unemployment rates for Kansas counties for the week ending April 25, 2020.

Story updated 5:50 p.m. Thursday

Douglas County’s estimated unemployment rate is now up to 14.8%, but the number of county residents making new unemployment filings has hit its lowest level since mid-March, when the pandemic began shuttering businesses across the state.

The estimated unemployment rate for the county is up 1.2 percentage points from a 13.6% rate last week, as estimated by the University of Kansas’ Institute for Policy & Social Research.

Douglas County continues to have the second-highest unemployment rate of any urban county in the state, trailing the 24.5% rate in Sedgwick County, which is home to Wichita and its battered aviation industry. Overall, Douglas County’s rate is the seventh-highest in the state, as several rural counties — Sumner, Butler, Wilson, Montgomery, and Jackson — have posted rates higher than Douglas’.

The number of people making new unemployment claims in the county, however, dropped significantly from a week ago. Initial claims in Douglas County totaled 859, down from 1,503.

Since the week ending March 21, which is when the state saw its first spike in pandemic-related unemployment, 9,896 county residents have filed for unemployment, which is thought to shatter any previous Douglas County high from past downturns.

In other unemployment news:

• Kansas workers who are self-employed, independent contractors or part of the “gig” economy continue to wait for their unemployment benefits, even though Congress passed a plan making them eligible more than a month ago.

The Journal-World questioned the Kansas Department of Labor on Thursday morning about what specifically was delaying the department from approving benefits for self-employed workers.

A spokeswoman said the department planned to issue a press release on Thursday that would provide an update on the program. After 5 p.m. a spokeswoman with the department sent the Journal-World an infographic that suggests the program, called Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, could start accepting applications on May 12 and sending payments on May 25. But the infographic also notes that the date is subject to change.

Last week the Journal-World had been told by the department that it was considering hiring an outside vendor to implement the program. On Thursday, the Journal-World asked the department whether it had selected a vendor, and specifically what type of work still needed to be completed to begin sending checks to the self-employed and other workers who are eligible under the program that Congress approved.

The department, though, provided no new information on that issue Thursday.

Many self-employed people, independent contractors and other such workers have filed for benefits through the state’s unemployment system, only to be denied. In a Facebook post on Tuesday, the Kansas Department of Labor said the self-employed and others are right to file the claims for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.

“Your claims likely will be denied, but this is not a dead end,” the department said in its post.

Having that denial letter will be important in establishing eligibility for the federally authorized PUA program. One of the requirements of that program is that individuals are ineligible for traditional state unemployment benefits.

However, the department said in its posts that self-employed workers also should take the additional step of filing for weekly unemployment claims, even though their initial claims were denied.

“Once the PUA program is established and you are found to be eligible for it, you will have already completed the first two steps to receiving benefits,” the department posted. “If you are eligible for benefits (which you likely are), you will receive benefits for all claimed weeks.”

Some people trying to file for the claims, though, have expressed confusion about how they file for a weekly claim online, given that their initial claim was denied. Kansas Department of Labor spokeswoman Julie Menghini said in an email Thursday evening that the department is continuing to work on processes in that regard. However, she said self-employed individuals don’t need to file weekly claims after having been denied, but people who are seeking traditional unemployment insurance may need to continue doing so while their “case is adjudicated or appealed.”

• The state of Kansas paid out $35.5 million in unemployment benefits for the week ending April 25. That’s up from about $28 million a week before, and about $2.1 million during the same week a year ago.

One researcher was warning this week that the payments, while providing badly needed income to those out of work, also have the ability to create future problems if unemployment recipients aren’t properly setting aside money to pay taxes on the benefits.

Donna Ginther, a researcher at KU’s Institute for Policy & Social Research, said she’s not sure enough is being done to remind unemployment recipients that their unemployment benefits are taxable. Unlike a paycheck from an employer, taxes aren’t automatically withheld from unemployment benefits. People receiving unemployment benefits may want to set aside money from the benefit payments in order to make future tax payments.

“One potential issue that has been overlooked in the media is that unemployment benefits are taxable,” Ginther said via email. “Many who are receiving unemployment benefits will have a very unpleasant surprise in April of 2021 if they do not withhold taxes from the unemployment benefits.”

Just more than 87,000 Kansas residents received unemployment benefits last week, up from about 72,000 the week before and about 5,500 a year ago.

• The manufacturing sector last week continued to produce the largest number of layoffs in the state. Just more than 8,400 manufacturing workers filed for unemployment claims last week. That was far greater than the next-hardest-hit industry, health care and social assistance, which produced about 2,800 new claims.