It may come as cold comfort to millions, but a new study has found that Pennsylvania’s workforce statistically has been hit much less hard by unemployment during the pandemic than most other states.
According to the report released last week by Washington, D.C.-based personal finance website WalletHub, Pennsylvania ranked 50th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia based on year-over-year increase in unemployment claims for the week of June 1, 2020 compared to the week of June 3, 2019.
New Jersey came in last, while Oklahoma was first.
Pennsylvania ranked 37 out of 51 for increase in claims since the pandemic began. Since March 15, 2.5 million total unemployment compensation claims have been filed in the state, Department of Labor and Industry statistics show, and nearly 14.2 billion in benefits have been paid out.
To view the full report and each state’s rank, visit: https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-biggest-increase-in-unemployment-due-to-coronavirus/72730/.
How Pa. is faring
Data used to create WalletHub’s rankings came from the U.S. Department of Labor. Based on that data, the study found that Pennsylvania’s unemployment claims increased by:
• 188.46% from June 2019 to June 2020
• 83.49% from January to June of this year
• 1,404.57% since the start of the pandemic. This metric refers to the increase in the number of unemployment insurance initial claims between the weeks of March 16, 2020 to June 1, 2020 compared to the weeks of March 18, 2019 to June 3, 2019.
That last metric, in particular, gives a sense of how steeply the number of unemployment cases has risen since the outbreak and subsequent shutdown orders began to hit the economy just three months ago.
By comparison, the five states most hard-hit since the beginning of the pandemic were: Georgia (4,438% increase in claims), New Hampshire (3,763%), Florida (3,618%), Kentucky (3,586%), Virginia (2,901%) and North Carolina (2,901%).
Relative to others
This is all relative, however.
Keep in mind that Pennsylvania, with 12.8 million people, is the fifth most populous state, with a statewide civilian workforce of 6.4 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
So while New Hampshire, for example, might have seen a more dramatic increase in the number of claims, its entire population is just 1.36 million, with a civilian workforce of just 713,552. Still, its unemployment rate was 17.2% in April.
According to the most recent figures released by the state Department of Labor and Industry, Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate more than doubled from 5.8% in March, to 15.1% in April, the highest numbers in at least a generation.
Analysis from the Federal Reserve shows that unemployment peaked coming out of the Great Recession at 8.8% in February of March 2010. Previous to that, you would have to look back to January and February of 1983, when the tally hit 12.7% to even come close to levels now being suffered in Pennsylvania. The current numbers are by far the highest since 1976, which is how far back federal stats published online go.
More than 44 million Americans have lost their jobs during the current crisis, WalletHub noted, which wipes out the 22.7 million jobs created since the end of the Great Recession in 2010. That recession claimed only 8.8 million jobs.
Going back to WalletHub’s state rankings, here is how Pennsylvania’s numbers compare with the four most populous states ahead of us (per BLS and WalletHub):
CALIFORNIA
• Pop. 39.7 million
• Workforce 18.51 million
• Pandemic unemployment up 1,097%
• April unemployment rate 16.1%
TEXAS
• Pop. 29 million
• Workforce 12.93 million
• Pandemic unemployment up 1,508%
• April unemployment rate 13%
FLORIDA
• Pop. 21.6 million
• Workforce 9.4 million
• Pandemic unemployment up 3,618%
• April unemployment rate 13.3%
NEW YORK
• Pop. 19.49 million
• Workforce 9.0 million
• Pandemic unemployment up 1,496%
• April unemployment rate 15%
What’s next?
Is there a silver lining in any of this?
As the WalletHub statistics attest, Pennsylvania is not alone — and, state Secretary of Labor and Industry Jerry Oleksiak said late last month, the state’s tracking relative to national trends is similar to what was seen before the pandemic.
Then, too, more businesses around Pennsylvania are returning to some semblance of normalcy as more counties enter the least-restrictive green phase of the commonwealth’s coronavirus recovery program. Luzerne County and seven others are scheduled to go to green this Friday, June 19.
That, and we’ll all get another snapshot of the state’s economic health when May’s unemployment numbers are released by the BLS on Friday.