Missouri ranked sixth in US unemployment recovery from COVID-19
As seen in WalletHub’s recent report, Missouri and Kansas fall on completely different ends of the country’s unemployment recovery spectrum. // Image courtesy of Wallethub
In over a year of pandemic madness and the economic downfalls that have come with it, we at least can find solace in the fact that Missouri is on the upper end of the country’s slow climb of recovery from it.
A recent report from WalletHub ranks Missouri as the sixth fastest state to recover for weekly unemployment claims. Kansas, in comparison, comes in dead last at 51st. The U.S. as a whole saw 847,000 new unemployment claims last week, which is an 88% reduction from the pandemic’s peak of 6.9 million claims.
There have been 1,016,720 unemployment claims in Missouri between the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis on March 16, 2020, and January 18, 2021. Compared to the reported 170,926 between the week of March 18, 2019, and January 20, 2020, that’s a 594.83% change.
Between 9,059 unemployment claims during the week of Jan. 18, 2021, and 5,351 the week of January 21, 2019, Missouri has seen a 69.30% change in unemployment claims. Missouri is ranked eighth in recovery just for the span of Jan. 2020 to Jan. 2021, with 7,474 reported claims as of the week of Jan. 1, 2020, and 9,059 as of the week of Jan. 18, 2021.
WalletHub used three metrics based on changes in unemployment claims to measure recovery speed for the workforces of each state. WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez says vaccine rollout taking longer than expected is slowing unemployment recovery altogether.
“Without having most of the population vaccinated, we can’t achieve a full recovery, which means businesses will continue to not be able to hire in full force,” Gonzalez says. “If we can put more resources into achieving widespread vaccination, we can expect to make bigger strides in reducing unemployment. We should be concerned with educating people on the benefits of getting vaccinated, too, so that a higher percentage of the population will choose to receive the vaccine.”
