States Hit the Hardest When it Comes to Unemployment
With the U.S. experiencing a historically record number of initial unemployment claims, WalletHub recently released its report on the “States with the Biggest Increases in Unemployment Due to Coronavirus,” along with accompanying videos.
WalletHub stated that “To identify which states have experienced the largest unemployment increases, (it) compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across two key metrics. These metrics compare initial unemployment claim increases for the week of March 23, 2020 to both the same week in 2019 and the first week of 2020. Below, you can see highlights from the report, along with a WalletHub Q&A.”
ALL THE CONTENT BELOW IS BY WALLETHUB.COM:
| States with Biggest Unemployment Increases | States with Smallest Unemployment Increases |
| 1. Louisiana | 42. Idaho |
| 2. North Carolina | 43. New York |
| 3. Indiana | 44. Illinois |
| 4. New Hampshire | 45. Arkansas |
| 5. Florida | 46. Alaska |
| 6. Virginia | 47. West Virginia |
| 7. Michigan | 48. Wyoming |
| 8. Kentucky | 49. Wisconsin |
| 9. District of Columbia | 50. Connecticut |
| 10. New Mexico | 51. Oregon |
WalletHub Q&A
How do red states and blue states compare when it comes to increases in unemployment?
“With an average unemployment rank of 25, Blue States suffered a higher increase of their unemployment during the coronavirus outbreak than Red States, which rank 27 on average,” said Jill Gonzalez, WalletHub analyst. “The lower the rank, the higher the increase in initial unemployment claims that state received during the coronavirus pandemic.”
The state with the current largest number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is New York. How has New York’s unemployment rate been affected?
“New York has seen a 717% increase in initial unemployment claims from the beginning of 2020 to the 13th week,” said Jill Gonzalez, WalletHub analyst. “This is better than the average increase of 2,002%.”
What can states do in order to minimize the rise in their unemployment rates?
“States should aggressively focus on helping the companies in the most need. The federal response will include sending checks to most citizens, even those whose income has not been affected by the coronavirus. States can use a more targeted approach to divert resources to the companies affected the most, thus having maximum impact for the money spent,” said Jill Gonzalez, WalletHub analyst.
To view the full report and your state or the District’s rank, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/
Please let me know if you have any questions or if you would like to schedule a phone, Skype or in-studio interview with one of our analysts. Full data sets for specific states are also available upon request. In addition, feel free to embed this YouTube video summarizing the study on your website. You can also use or edit these raw files as you see fit.
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