While the number of new state jobless claims seems to have leveled off based on last week’s filings, it’s still trending down, according to a report Thursday by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.

Unemployed Coloradans filed 4,395 new regular claims for the week ending May 8, only 77 fewer than filed the prior week, according to the CDLE. But it still marks the 11th week in a row that new claims have dropped and is the lowest level since March 14, 2020, as the pandemic was taking hold.

Contract or self-employed workers filed an additional 616 new claims under the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. That’s just two less than the previous week.

The total number of new claims for payroll and PUA-eligible workers dropped less than 2% from the prior week’s total of 5,090 claims.

The number of continuing claims dropped to 192,830 for the week ending May 1, down 2% from the week before. CDLE attributed that more to the efforts of its fraud-prevention efforts with vendor ID.ME than to the economic recovery.

March’s unemployment rate stood at 6.4%, unchanged from February but down from the 6.6% January level. Colorado’s unemployment rate remains above the national rate of 6%.

The state department forwarded 1,650,404 claimants to ID.ME, and only 200,666 have been verified, according to CDLE. ID.ME officials suspect the rest are fraudulent claims.

“The majority of claimants referred to ID.me are not even attempting the process,” a CDLE spokeswoman said via email May 8. “We finished reaching out to all active continuing claimants last week.”

“We are aware that some legitimate claimants will experience a hold after completing ID.me, and we continue to explore and implement ways to streamline the investigation process while remaining fiscally responsible,” said Joe Barela, executive director for CDLE, in a statement.

“The significant decline in initial claims is not due to the small population of legitimate claimants experiencing tech issues with ID.me,” he said. “We’re seeing a decline because ID.me is stopping criminals from attacking Colorado’s unemployment system.”

“Just this week, ID.me identified and prevented a new attack that involved criminals swapping IPs, devices, and line types in an attempt to bypass ID.me’s controls,” according to CDLE’s Thursday release.

CDLE reports that $9.2 billion in claims have been paid since March 2020.