The COVID-19 pandemic created a deep recession in the early part of last year. The national unemployment rate jumped to 14.8%, the highest level since 1948. Fortunately, the rebound has been substantial, likely aided by government assistance to businesses and individuals. Additionally, some businesses were able to re-open as new COVID-19 cases and death dropped. (That has started to reverse itself because of the Delta variant and the economy could be undermined again in late summer into the Fall.)
The recovery has been uneven by many measures. Among them are unemployment rates. According to the BLS “STATE EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT — JULY 2021,” the unemployment rate in Nevada was 7.7%, the highest among all states. The lowest rate was Nebraska at 2.3%. Nevada’s job trouble is almost certainly because of the shuttering of the gambling and entertainment industries. Hawaii has suffered similarly with an unemployment rate of 7.3%.
Among the most notable things about the jobs data about the U.S. is that there are still millions of unfilled jobs, and the number is at a record. It peaked in June at 10.2 million. It is not clear why the number is so high. One theory is that people receiving aid make more than they would in very low-paying jobs. However, there is not strong enough evidence for a consensus about the causes.
Wallet recently published its “States Whose Unemployment Rates Are Bouncing Back Fastest”. It looked at the most recent state jobless number and compared them to points in time in both 2020 and 2019. This approached allowed the researcher to look at both the effect of the COVID-19 driven job loss in 2020 and the strong job market in 2019.
The analysis showed that the strongest state for a jobs rebound was Nebraska. These are the top 10:
1. Nebraska
2. Utah
3. Idaho
4. South Dakota
5. Alabama
6. New Hampshire
7. Vermont
8. Montana
9. Kansas
10. Oklahoma
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