For the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment figures actually regressed and increased up to 1.4 million weekly jobless claims, according to a recent Associated Press news story.

The 1.4 million Americans filing new unemployment claims for the week ending July 18 was the 18th week in a row that number has been more than 1 million and was up from the 1.3 million reported the previous week, according to the July 23 AP news story.

The jobless claim figure doesn't include about 975,000 self-employed and gig economy workers who jobless benefits under the separate Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program.

The PUA, for the first time, made the self-employed and gig economy workers eligible for unemployment assistance.

The figure for "regular" unemployment benefits is most striking because jobless claims never was higher than 700,000 prior to pandemic-driven government shutdowns.

Included among the self-employed are owners of nearly 73,000 small businesses that have closed since March, a figured that jump 28% in June, according to the AP news story, which cited data from the consumer-review website Yelp.

These figures worry economists such as Ernie Tedeschi, managing director and policy economist with the investment bank Evercore ISI.

"Every time a business closes, that makes the recovery longer and harder, so that worries me," Tedeschi said in the AP story.

Meanwhile, congressional lawmakers are locked in negotiations over another pandemic stimulus bill after a previously approved $600 in unemployment benefits expired earlier this month, leaving many seeking help to survive the economic damage caused by the pandemic.

A quarter of all rental households in the nation, about 11 million, reportedly spent more than half their income on housing prior to the pandemic, on rent before the recession, said Enterprise Community Partners CEO Priscilla Aldomovar said in the AP news story.

Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit that focuses on affordable housing, owns 13,000 rental units.

Aldomovar told the AP that Enterprise renters "have largely kept up with their payments," and speculated the renters were able to do with federal assistance.

"It's very precarious but it's been held together by the stimulus," Aldomovar said in the AP story.