PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island’s initial unemployment claims for the week of June 21 had recovered the least of any state since the start of the pandemic, according to WalletHub Thursday.
Despite ranking highly on multiple COVID-19 economic recovery indexes, the Ocean State’s initial claims, which reflects the number of individuals applying for unemployment aid in a given week, had declined by 41% since the start of the pandemic, slower than any other state, according to the report. South Carolina has had the largest decline in initial claims in that time, falling 93.2%.
The time period considered for the rankings compared the weeks of March 15, 2021, to June 21, 2021, to the weeks of March 16, 2020, to June 22, 2020.
As of May, the most recent data for state unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed Rhode Island’s unemployment rate was 5.8%, which ranked No. 31 in the nation and third highest in New England. Additionally, the state’s unemployment rate had declined 7.1 percentage points, compared with a national decline of 7.5 percentage points in that time.
The number of individuals collecting weekly continuing unemployment benefits in the state has declined from a pandemic high of roughly 125,000 in May 2020, to just under 70,000 in recent weeks. A significant portion of the people collecting continuing unemployment benefits have been under the federal pandemic unemployment assistance program, accounting for more than 31,000 individuals in the R.I. Department of Labor and Training’s most recent weekly COVID-19 unemployment data report reflecting the week ended June 13. The total number of individuals collecting continuing unemployment claims for that week totaled 67,040.
As for the state’s initial claims since the pandemic began, a majority (509,765) have been filed as COVID-19 specific unemployment claims, while another 462,647 have filed initial PUA claims, which means most applicants have indicated that they have been laid off or put out of work due to the impacts of the pandemic. All initial claims in the state since the pandemic began have totaled just under 1.1 million.
At the peak of the pandemic’s impact on the economy in Rhode Island, weekly filings were regularly in the tens of thousands, twice passing 40,000 claims in a single week, once in April and once in August.
For the week ended June 13, the state had 12,337 claims, including nearly 10,000 COVID-19 specific initial claims filed, as well as 1,430 PUA filings and 1,127 traditional UI filings. Despite the large volume of initial claims, the number of individuals collecting continuing unemployment benefits in Rhode Island only rose by 866 week to week.
The DLT is yet to release detailed figures for the week of June 21 this week.
The WalletHub report on initial claims may be found online.
Chris Bergenheim is the PBN web editor. You may reach him at Bergenheim@PBN.com.
