Last week, the government reported that first-time unemployment claims had risen to 589,000 for the week ending Jan. 17, tying a record high set in December.

The latest job cuts  and the additional announcements likely to come in a cascading pattern as job losses through the economy cause demand to shrink further and thus lead to more layoffs mean more pain for states, as unemployment insurance claims rise and deplete state coffers.

The Obama administration has proposed setting aside $43 billion to help blunt the problem and provide for new recipients of unemployment insurance and existing ones. That money is intended to raise the weekly benefits, to extend how long people can collect those payments and to cover more types of workers, like part-timers. It is largely based upon an estimate that the unemployment rate will peak at 8.3 percent in 2010. But if unemployment reaches the double-digits, as some economists expect, the funding will almost certainly not be enough, economists say.

“The economy is deteriorating at a faster clip than even the most dreary forecasts had expected,” said the economist Joseph Brusuelas. “At the current trend, $43 billion will not be sufficient, should we breach 9 percent unemployment and maybe reach into the double digits.”

Monday’s announcements only added to a grim parade of job cuts from Wall Street to wireless providers to computer companies to retail stores.

Last week, Microsoft announced it would cut 5,000 jobs over the next year and a half; Sony in Japan and Ericcson in Sweden each announced 5,000 layoffs; and the motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson said it was eliminating 1,000 jobs. Carmakers in Japan, South Korea and Europe have also cut jobs in recent months as did the cellphone maker Nokia.

“It steepens the whole downturn,” said Harry Holzer, a labor economist at Georgetown University and the Urban Institute. “The magnitude of these layoffs indicates that the downturn in the labor markets seems to be accelerating.”