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New unemployment claims continue to rise more slowly as some people return to work. Specifically, in the week ending June 13, seasonally adjusted new claims were 1,508,000, a decrease of 58,000 from the previous week's revised level. In the meantime, continued claims, which show how many Americans received unemployment benefits, also dropped to 20.5 million in the week ending June 6, a decrease of 62,000 from the previous week's revised level. As the data shows, there is a steady decline in job losses due to the coronavirus.
The National Association of REALTORS® closely monitors the weekly claims for unemployment insurance provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since this data is also released for each state, we track the jobless claims activity at the state level. This state-level data report is a very important indicator to watch at economic turning points because it provides detail on what’s happening week by week, rather than each month or quarter.
Thirty-four states reported a decrease in new claims for the week ending June 13. Actually, in 9 of these states, new claims have declined for four weeks in a row. Florida, Oklahoma, and Maryland were the states with the highest decline in new unemployment claims compared to the previous week. The number of new claims dropped by 25,863 in Florida; 20,788 in Oklahoma; 18,736 in Maryland.
However, unadjusted advance claims increased in Texas, Nevada, and Washington. Specifically, the number of advance claims increased by 4,219 claims in Texas; 3,651 in Nevada; and 2,974 in Washington.
Taking a closer look at the percentage change of the last week’s new claims with the new claims of the previous week, Maryland (-45%) had the largest drop in layoffs followed by Wyoming (-40%) and Massachusetts (-33%). In contrast, in Nevada, layoffs increased 34% from the previous week followed by South Dakota (14%) and New Jersey (11%).
Moreover, the current release provides information about people filing new and total Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). Among 43 states, 9.3 million people received benefits in the week ending on May 30 using the federal government’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. Nearly 445,000 fewer people claimed to receive PUA benefits compared to a week earlier. Arizona, Michigan, and Hawaii had the most people receiving PUA benefits. Specifically, 27% of the labor force in Arizona received PUA benefits in the week ending May 30 followed by Michigan (23%) and Hawaii (22%).
The map below shows you the percentage change of layoffs for each state. Click on a state to see how many layoffs occurred every week within the last year.
