The U.S. reduced unemployment to record lows last year, and it has only experienced slight fluctuations since then. The job market is still in good shape, as new unemployment claims decreased by 14% compared to the same week last year, while remaining unchanged week-over-week on April 22. There are currently 6.4 million Americans unemployed in total, though, and it’s important to look at some key stats for the latest week to get the complete picture:
- Every state had unemployment claims last week that were lower than in the previous week except for Pennsylvania, New York, North Dakota, Minnesota, Ohio, West Virginia, Nebraska, Vermont, Michigan, Nevada, Kansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Alaska, Iowa, New Hampshire and the District of Columbia.
- 30 states – including Kentucky, Georgia, and Indiana – had unemployment claims last week that were lower than the same week last year.
To identify where unemployment claims are decreasing the most, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on changes in unemployment claims for several key benchmark weeks. We also considered the number of claims per 100,000 people in the labor force.
