New jobless claims have skyrocketed in NC. How does the state compare to others?
Jobless claims have skyrocketed in North Carolina amid the coronavirus pandemic, putting it among the states with biggest jumps in unemployment, a report found.
The report, done by the research group WalletHub, compared increases in the number of new unemployment claims between all 50 states and the District of Columbia, then ranked the most impacted states during the week of April 6, the latest week for which it had data, and overall since the start of the pandemic.
North Carolina ranked third among the states with the biggest increases last week, behind only Colorado and Louisiana, and seventh among states with the biggest increases overall, the report found.
The state had 137,934 new jobless claims during the week starting on April 6, the report says. That’s a 4,419.46 percent increase compared to the week of April 8 last year, in which there were 3,052 new claims.
North Carolina saw a 4,605.70 percent increase in new unemployment claims since the pandemic started, WalletHub says. Between March 16 and the week of April 6, there have been 541,584 new claims.
Those numbers are based on data from U.S. Department of Labor, which WalletHub used to create its rankings.
Using data from the N.C. Department of Commerce, The News & Observer reported last week that there have been 510,000 new jobless claims since the middle of March.
The state has not released the new numbers this week and the new national numbers were released Thursday.
But based on the most recent data from the state, The New & Observer reports that the number of jobless claims equal 10 percent of the state’s workforce.
And that’s just those who have applied for unemployment benefits, not everyone who has been put out of work due to the pandemic.
About 90 percent of those who have applied have cited the pandemic as the reason they lost their job. North Carolina is under a statewide stay-at-home order, and Gov. Roy Cooper has issued executive orders requiring many businesses to close or change their operations in an effort to the slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Although the report says North Carolina is one of the states whose workforce has been impacted the most, the national unemployment figures are staggering, too.
During the week of April 6, there were 5.2 million new jobless claims. Over the last four weeks, there have been a total of 21.7 million new jobless claims, the WalletHub report found.
That’s nearly 2.5 times the number jobs lost during the Great Recession, which was 8.8 million, the report says.
Congress recently passed a $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package that includes $1,200 relief checks to Americans who make less than $75,000 annually.
But experts told WalletHub that while the package is a good start, it won’t necessarily be enough to curb the full impact the pandemic is having on the country.
“Facing a pandemic is stressful enough by itself, but many Americans must deal with losing their employment on top of health concerns,” the report says.
This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 1:37 PM with the headline "New jobless claims have skyrocketed in NC. How does the state compare to others?."
