New England states leading way in recovery

By Alan Wooten | The Center Square

No states have had unemployment claims recover quicker than the New England pair of New Hampshire and Vermont.

That’s the finding of a study by WalletHub, a personal finance website approaching a decade in business. The company says “6 million Americans” are “unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in total.”

Methodology for reporting in this statistical ranking was based on the change in number of unemployment insurance initial claims two years after the pandemic started versus the pre-pandemic year. This, WalletHub says, “refers to the change in the number of unemployment insurance initial claims between the weeks of March 7, 2022, to June 6, 2022, compared to the weeks of March 4, 2019, to June 3, 2019.

Data was supplied by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The change in unemployment claims from two years after the pandemic versus a year before the pandemic was -35.9% for New Hampshire and -35.58% for Vermont.

According to the Labor Department, as of April, the unemployment rate in New Hampshire is 2.3% and in Vermont it is 2.5% – each being well below the 3.6% April national average.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons