June 4, 2021
Nearly 9 million jobs lost during the COVID-19 pandemic have not been recovered. Jobless claims by week, a regularly used measure of people who have lost jobs, were well over a million a week beginning last April. The numbers have dropped fairly consistently and have reached the lowest level since the pandemic plunge. Last week’s 385,000 figure was better than expected.
The next big measure of jobs in America is the monthly unemployment numbers for May, which will be released today.
The recovery across states has been uneven. When measured by monthly unemployment, states with strong tourism industries, like Hawaii and Nevada, have been hit hard. On the other hand, Utah and Nebraska have had jobless rates below 3% for some time. That is as strong as the jobs economy was in 2019, which in turn was the best in five decades.
WalletHub looked at jobless claims by state for last week. The states that recovered the most last week had no geographic or population size pattern.
- South Carolina
- Wyoming
- Vermont
- South Dakota
- Arkansas
- North Dakota
- Kansas
- New York
- Arizona
- Minnesota
Perhaps it is good news that the pattern does not restrict the recovery to one region. It is a sign that the job recovery is relatively even. The same is true with states with the poorest recoveries.
- Maryland
- District of Columbia
- Utah
- Georgia
- Alaska
- Oklahoma
- Virginia
- New Mexico
- Delaware
- Rhode Island
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