Coronavirus job losses are hitting these 3 states the hardest

Yahoo Finance ^ | 05/28/2020 | Zack Guzman

[SeekAndFind]

The number of jobs lost due to the coronavirus shutdown continue to mount, with the latest weekly total of Americans applying for unemployment benefits topping 2 million, yet again.

The latest swath of applications brings the total amount of jobless claims to more than 40 million over the past 10 weeks, wiping out the 20 million jobs added over the last decade by a two-to-one margin.

But some states have been feeling the impact of job losses more than others. A Yahoo Finance review of jobless claims data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that Georgia and other states in the South have been particularly hard hit since the coronavirus pandemic brought the country’s economy to a grinding halt.

Comparing each state’s average weekly jobless claims totals over the past nine weeks to the week before shutdowns started occurring in March, reveals Georgia, Florida, and Kentucky to be the three states showing the largest percentage spike in people applying for unemployment benefits. Georgia, in particular, saw jobless claims average a more than 4,300% spike versus the week ending March 14. Florida and Kentucky saw slightly less dramatic peaks, with claims surging less than 4,000%.

Alabama and Virginia rounded out the top five hardest hit states, each averaging about a 3,000% spike in weekly average unemployment claims in the period observed.

[central_va]

Great post.

[CJ Wolf]

what was it pre-Corona?

[kiryandil]

These numbers are totally bogus, because many states have broken unemployment application systems, preventing people from filing for unemployment, and thus being counted and included in the numbers.

It could be that Georgia just has good unemployment software.