Arkansas’ economy has experienced the third best recovery in the United States since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a WalletHub report.
The report shows the United States gained 2.5 million nonfarm payroll jobs in the past month. WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia in order to develop a report on which states’ workforces are experiencing the quickest recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Arkansas is ranked third for states recovered most since the start of the COVID-19 crisis and 16thfor states most recovered since last week alone (first being most recovered).
The report by WalletHub is organized into six sections: main findings, detailed findings, coronavirus job losses vs. Great Recession, red vs. blue states, ‘Ask the Experts’ and methodology.
In their main findings, Connecticut is listed as the state which has recovered the most since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. Rhode Island takes first for states most recovered since last week. On the opposite side, Georgia has recovered the least since the beginning, and Oklahoma has recovered the least since last week. Surrounding Arkansas, Texas and Missouri have mid-rankings for recovering since the beginning, while Louisiana is ranked in the 40s for both.
In addition, WalletHub reported that the “coronavirus has wiped out all the job gains since the Great Recession,” referencing how the U.S. had created 22.7 million jobs since 2010 but lost 45.7 million jobs in the last 13 weeks. For comparison, only 8.8 million jobs were lost in the Great Recession.
It was also noted that blue states’ unemployment claims are recovering the quickest, as their average rank is 24.57 compared to the average rank of 27 for red states.
As of this job report, there are still 21 million Americans without a job due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, there were 1.5 million new unemployment claims in the nation last week.
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