The U.S. is making significant progress in the fight against COVID-19 with the distribution of the vaccine and boosters, and this has been reflected in the job market, despite new unemployment claims increasing slightly week-over-week on June 27. There are currently 6 million Americans unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in total, though, and it’s important to look at some key stats for the latest week to get the full picture:
- There were 235,000 new unemployment claims nationwide, which is a lot fewer than the 6.1 million during the peak of the pandemic (a 96% reduction).
- The good news is that every state, except New Jersey, Mississippi, Ohio, and Michigan had unemployment claims last week that were better than the same week last year.
- Every state had unemployment claims last week that were lower than before the pandemic except for California, Texas, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Oregon, New York, Utah, Mississippi, Georgia, Michigan, Colorado, Ohio, and Indiana.
To identify which states’ workforces are experiencing the quickest recovery from COVID-19, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on changes in unemployment claims for several key benchmark weeks.
New York is having a somewhat successful recovery from new unemployment claims, with last week’s claims lower than at the start of 2020, according to WalletHub’s updated rankings for the States Whose Unemployment Claims Are Recovering the Quickest.
Key Stats:
- Weekly unemployment claims in New York increased by 21.56% compared to the same week in 2019. This was the 8th biggest increase in the U.S.
- Weekly unemployment claims in New York decreased by 61.03% compared to the start of 2020. This was the 15th biggest decrease in the U.S.
- Weekly unemployment claims in New York decreased by 30.33% compared to the same week last year. This was the 16th smallest decrease in the U.S.