California and Pennsylvania have lodged the most applications for unemployment benefits since the coronavirus pandemic staggered the economy starting in March, but New York is likely to catch up once it fixes its overloaded system for processing jobless claims.
At least 2.17 million people have applied for unemployment compensation in the Golden State in the last three weeks, accounting for almost 15% of total job losses in the United States. California has the fourth highest number of COVID-19 cases.
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In Pennsylvania, at least 1.1 million people have filed for benefits. The state ranks seventh in the number of coronavirus cases. Michigan, for its part, is No. 3 in pandemic-related jobless claims.
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New York, the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus crisis, has managed to process almost 800,000 new jobless claims in the past three weeks, but the true number is almost certainly much higher. New York had about 160,000 COVID-19 cases as of early Thursday — more than one-third of the entire U.S. total.
The state has hired hundreds of people to handle a backlog of applications that have left many New Yorkers frustrated.
The biggest increase in new jobless claims came last week in Georgia, where they jumped by 388,165 and almost tripled the number of new applications in the prior week. Georgia was later than most states in shutting down large parts of its economy as COVID-19 cases multiplied.
The accompanying table above shows all the increases in jobless claims in the 50 states and Washington, D.C. since the coronavirus crisis seized the U.S. economy in mid-March.
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These figures are based on advanced state estimates for the most recent week as well as revised state data for March. The number of COVID-19 cases is compiled from a running New York Times tabulation.
Source : MTV
