New Jersey In Top Third Of Unemployment Claims Improvement

By Morgan Sweeney | The Center Square contributor, The Center Square New Jersey

May 12, 2022

(The Center Square) – Two years after the COVID-19 pandemic started, the drop in unemployment claims in New Jersey is bettered by only 14 other states.

In a recent study by WalletHub comparing the current number of state unemployment claims to numbers before and during the pandemic, the Garden State is down 18.84%. That trails neighbors Delaware (down 30.6%) and Pennsylvania (down 29.73%) and is ahead of New York (up 8.39%). Maryland is down 30.52%.

New Jersey, with the seventh largest economy of U.S. states, has unemployment of 5.2% – eighth highest in the nation at 5.2%. Unemployment claims measures the number of claims filed for unemployment insurance; unemployment rate measures the number of unemployed individuals in a state who are currently looking for work.

"The country has more job openings than unemployed Americans," WalletHub says.
“Unemployment is really no longer an issue since the country has recovered from much of the fallout of the pandemic,” said Jill Gonzalez, an analyst at WalletHub. “The next step might be looking to open up immigration to fill the surplus of jobs nationwide. Doing so would not only help businesses meet their needs but would also drive additional economic growth.”

Unemployment claims increases since 2019 were biggest in the District of Columbia, Ohio, Indiana, Utah and Michigan. The largest decreases were in New Hampshire, Vermont, Iowa, Delaware and Maryland.

Notable among those was Utah, where unemployment pre-pandemic was 2.6% and now is 2.2%. Vermont, Iowa, and New Hampshire all started with low unemployment rates, and New Hampshire is closest to achieving its pre-pandemic rate.

Maryland's unemployment rate is similar situation to New Jersey. Both states in 2019 were 3.4% and now are just two percentage points apart. Maryland’s unemployment rate is worse than New Jersey’s at 5.4%.

“U.S. employers added over 670,000 jobs in February, continuing the streak of strong job growth we've been seeing for months," Gonzalez said. "Job growth, in combination with less mask and vaccine mandates nationwide, should spur even more economic recovery.”

The focus of the work of The Center Square New Jersey is state and local-level government and economic reporting that approaches stories with a taxpayer sensibility.