How much did unemployment grow for ages 16-19 between April 2019 and April 2020? California EDD data breakdown

That 19 percentage point jump nationally is staggering. Do you know if California LMID data is broken out by month or just annual averages? I need April specifically for the comparison.

The LMID publishes monthly Current Employment Statistics but the age breakdowns are sometimes only in the annual demographic reports. You might have better luck with the CPS microdata if you need April month-specific figures for California teens.

Yeah the monthly age-stratified data for California specifically sometimes requires pulling from the CPS public use microdata files rather than the pre-packaged LMID reports. The EDD website links out to some of those tools but they're clunky to navigate.

Yeah that 31-32% figure is the national rate for April 2020 for the 16-19 group. Keep in mind the baseline in April 2019 was already elevated around 12-13% because teen unemployment is structurally higher than adult unemployment even in good times — they're competing for entry-level work, have less experience, etc.

right that makes sense. so even before covid teens were already at like 13% unemployment which is way higher than the overall rate was. wild.

And it's worth noting that the 31-32% figure likely UNDERSTATES the real impact because many teens stopped looking for work entirely when nothing was available, which takes them out of the 'unemployed' count and puts them in 'not in labor force' — so the actual hit was probably even worse.

Oh interesting, I didn't know Claimyr worked for general EDD inquiries beyond just unemployment claims. I've heard of it for claim status stuff but reaching LMID staff is a different extension path entirely.

The agent I reached was able to transfer me to the right division. It wasn't seamless but way better than the 3 hours I spent trying before using Claimyr. The video demo really does show what the process looks like before you commit to trying it.

i tried calling edd for a research question once and literally got hung up on four times in a row before reaching anyone. will definitely look into claimyr.com if i need to call again

The 150% relative increase framing is really useful for the report we're writing. Is that BLS table publicly accessible without a subscription?

Yes completely free on the BLS website, just search for Table A-10 in their labor force statistics section. They have historical monthly data going back decades. For state-level breakdowns you'd cross-reference with the EDD LMID site.

This is way more detailed than I expected from a forum lol. Bookmarking this thread for reference.

This is exactly the kind of nuance we want to include. The employment-to-population ratio for teens probably tells a more complete story than the unemployment rate alone for that period.

Exactly. The EPOP ratio for 16-19 year olds nationally fell from about 35% in early 2020 to under 25% by April 2020. For California the figures were similar. That's the fullest picture of how badly that cohort was impacted.

Didn't realize there was a difference between the unemployment rate and employment to population ratio until now. Makes sense that the UE rate understates it if people stop looking.

Right — BLS defines 'unemployed' as actively looking for work AND not currently employed. If you stop looking, you're classified as out of the labor force, which makes the unemployment rate look artificially lower than the true labor market distress.

California EDD does allow workers under 18 to file if they were employed and paying into the UI system via payroll. The challenge is many teen workers were in cash jobs or gig situations that didn't have UI withholding, so they technically weren't covered. But teens in formal payroll jobs absolutely could and did file.

That makes sense. I wonder how many eligible teen claimants just never filed because they didn't know. The EDD outreach to that demographic in spring 2020 was probably minimal.

There was almost zero targeted outreach to teen workers from what I saw. EDD was completely overwhelmed processing adult claims and the volume was unprecedented — the system crashed multiple times. Teen workers who knew to file and how to file were the exception not the rule.

No worries! Adjudication just means EDD is reviewing something on your claim before they can approve or deny it. It doesn't automatically mean you did something wrong — it can be triggered by how you answered a question, your separation reason, or an employer response. If your claim shows 'adjudication in progress' you just need to wait for EDD to complete the review, which can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks.

ok thank you that is slightly less scary. mine has been in adjudication for 9 days. should i be calling them?

9 days is on the shorter end — many people wait 3-6 weeks. That said if you want to check on status or find out if they need anything from you, calling EDD is worth doing. Claimyr at claimyr.com is what I'd recommend to actually get through — their phone lines are notoriously hard to reach and Claimyr dramatically improves your chances of talking to an actual agent. The video at https://youtu.be/JmuwXR7HA10 shows how it works.

Thank you!! I'll check that out. I've been trying to call every morning and can't get through so this might help.

This is exactly what I needed! Do you have the title or publication number for that EDD report? I want to cite it properly.

I'll dig up the link — I think it was from the LMID's 'California Labor Market Review' series. They publish them as PDFs on the EDD website. Let me find the exact one and I'll post it back here.

California consistently runs slightly higher than national teen unemployment in normal times because of cost of living pressures affecting entry-level wage competitiveness and housing costs pushing workforce participation patterns differently. So a slightly larger spike makes sense too.

You're absolutely right and that human dimension is central to the report we're writing. The data tells the scale of the crisis but behind every percentage point is a young person who lost income, often for the first time, navigating a system designed for adults.

And EDD's online portal wasn't built for high volume either. The system was crashing constantly, people couldn't file, the phone lines were impossible. It was a perfect storm of an overwhelmed agency and a completely unprepared young workforce.

I had a 17 year old niece who lost her restaurant hostess job in March 2020 and spent weeks trying to figure out if she could even file. Her employer had no idea. EDD's website had no clear guidance for minor filers. She eventually gave up trying.

Yes as of 2025 the standard job search requirements are fully reinstated for most claimants. You're required to make 3 job search contacts per week, log them in your weekly certification, and be able to provide documentation if EDD audits your search activities. The CalJOBS registration requirement is also back in effect for most claimants.

Ok so 3 contacts per week. Does applying to a job online count as a contact even if you never hear back from them?

Yes, a submitted online application counts as a job search contact for your weekly certification. You want to keep records though — date, employer name, position, method of contact. EDD can ask for this documentation and you want to be able to produce it quickly.

Got it, thank you. I've been keeping a spreadsheet so hopefully that's sufficient.

That's a useful counterpoint for the report — the spike was dramatic but the recovery trajectory for teens was actually steeper upward compared to, say, workers 45+ who faced longer unemployment spells.

Exactly. Older workers who lost jobs in 2020 were still showing elevated long-term unemployment through 2022 and into 2023. Teen unemployment in California returned close to pre-pandemic baseline by Q1 2021.

The flip side is that older workers tend to have stronger UI claim histories and better understand how to navigate EDD, so even though their unemployment lasted longer they may have been better positioned to actually receive and maintain benefits compared to teen first-time filers.

Originally I was seeking California-specific data but the thread helpfully surfaced both — nationally it was about a 19-20 percentage point increase from roughly 13% to 32%, and California was slightly higher at roughly 20 percentage points from about 14% to 34% for the 16-19 age group between April 2019 and April 2020.

ok that makes sense. so california was even worse than the national average. makes sense given all the service industry jobs here.

Oh that's a great additional data layer — comparing labor force survey unemployment rates to actual UI claims filed would help quantify how many unemployed teens didn't file, which is something we want to address.

Right and my read of the data suggested a significant gap — teen unemployment as measured by the labor survey was way higher than teen UI claims, suggesting large numbers of eligible workers never filed. Either didn't know they could, were in non-covered employment, or couldn't navigate the EDD system successfully.

That filing gap data would be really compelling in a report. 'X% of unemployed teens never claimed the benefits they were entitled to' is a powerful finding.

That's really telling — the workforce system failing to reach first-time teen filers when they needed it most, to the point that high schools were filling the gap. Did your informal guide ever get shared more broadly?

We shared it with a few neighboring schools but it was just a Word doc, nothing official. A lot of it became outdated quickly anyway as EDD kept changing procedures during 2020.

This is exactly the kind of institutional knowledge gap we want to document. The unemployment system was not designed with accessibility for first-time young filers in mind and that showed badly in spring 2020.

The EPOP drop is actually more useful for our purposes than the unemployment rate because we're trying to measure labor market attachment disruption, not just official unemployment counts. Thank you for pulling this together.

Happy to help. If you need citations for these figures, BLS Table A-10 monthly data, the California EDD LMID annual demographic reports, and the San Francisco Fed's research publications on COVID labor market impacts in California are all solid peer-citable sources.

The SF Fed published some really rigorous analysis on California-specific labor market impacts broken down by demographic. Definitely worth including those as references since they specifically analyzed state-level effects rather than extrapolating from national data.

There were some studies published by PPIC (Public Policy Institute of California) and the UC system that looked at equity in UI receipt during COVID. California EDD itself was slow to publish demographic breakdowns but external researchers using EDD administrative data did this analysis.

Do you have any titles or authors I could search? I'm interested in this both for general knowledge and because it intersects with the teen unemployment question — Black and Latino teen workers in California were more concentrated in the most affected industries.

Search for 'California UI receipt racial disparities 2020' in Google Scholar — there were several papers published in 2021-2023 using EDD administrative data that specifically examined these equity dimensions. PPIC.org is also a great starting point.

That's a really nuanced point about the summer 2020 rebound. Essential retail was genuinely desperate for workers and teens willing to show up in person filled a gap that higher-wage workers were hesitant to fill. So the 16-19 unemployment picture by summer 2020 looked dramatically different from the April 2020 nadir.

Right and from an EDD perspective that would have meant a surge of claim openings in March-April and then a bunch of people going back on payroll in May-June, creating a ton of administrative work for the agency tracking all those transitions.

The EDD systems were not built for that kind of volume of rapid transitions. People going off claim, back on claim, partial earnings certifications — the weekly certification system was stressed in ways it hadn't been designed for.

No, age doesn't change the core requirements for your UI claim once you're eligible. You need to meet the same earnings base period requirements, file weekly certifications, conduct 3 job searches per week, and be available for full-time work. The only age-specific nuances might relate to work permit requirements if you were 17 or under when employed, but at 19 you're treated exactly like any adult claimant.

Perfect, that's reassuring. I was worried there was some special rule I was missing because I'm younger than most people I know who have filed.

The main thing that trips up younger claimants isn't age rules — it's base period earnings. If you were only working part-time through high school you might have lower base period wages which affects your weekly benefit amount. But the rules and requirements themselves are the same.

I actually tried this after someone mentioned it earlier in the thread and it worked. I had an adjudication question and got through to an actual person who explained exactly what was happening with my claim. Can't believe how much time I wasted trying to call the normal way.

Good to know for the students I work with who might need to reach EDD. I'll keep claimyr.com in mind when advising young claimants who can't get through the regular phone system.

Honestly given how impossible EDD phone lines are, any service that actually gets you to a human is worth knowing about. Their hold times are legendary for the wrong reasons.

This is the summary I needed. Thank you to everyone in this thread — I came in with a narrow data question and got way more context, nuance, and sourcing guidance than I expected. This community is genuinely helpful.

Good luck with the report. If you end up publishing it somewhere I'd love to see the link — this kind of youth workforce documentation is important for policy planning around the next economic disruption.

Seconded — would be great to see the finished product. Bookmark the BLS Table A-10 and the LMID EPOP data for future reference, both are updated monthly so you can track ongoing trends too.

The stat about 'largest single-year spike for any age cohort in post-WWII BLS records' is powerful and citable — make sure you verify the exact BLS source language when you write it up since that's the kind of claim that needs tight sourcing in a formal report.