Virginia is having a successful recovery from new unemployment claims with last week’s claims lower than in the same week in 2019, according to WalletHub’s updated rankings for the states whose unemployment claims are recovering the quickest.
In fact, the commonwealth finished the week at the top spot in the country as the state recovering the most from unemployment claims in the last week.
As the personal finance website WalletHub points out, the U.S. is making significant progress in the fight against COVID-19 with the distribution of the vaccine. This has been reflected in the job market as new unemployment claims decreased week-over-week in the last week of October.
Still, 7.7 million Americans remain unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in total.
269,000 new unemployment claims were filed nationwide last week, which is a lot fewer than the 6.1 million during the peak of the pandemic (a 96% reduction).
Among the key states that helped land Virginia with the fastest unemployment recovery rate in the country were that weekly unemployment claims in Virginia decreased by 49.70% compared to the same week in 2019. This was the second biggest decrease in the U.S. Further, Weekly unemployment claims in Virginia decreased by 62.86% compared to the start of 2020. This was the seventh biggest decrease in the U.S. And finally, weekly unemployment claims in Virginia decreased by 88.56% compared to the same week last year. This was the third biggest decrease in the U.S.
Other states ranked in the top 10 recovery rate by the website were 2) Arkansas 3) North Dakota 4) Delaware 5) Georgia 6) South Carolina 7) Kansas 8) South Dakota 9) West Virginia 10) Pennsylvania.
