Mississippi shows few signs of people getting back to work, yet

Listen to this article

By now, every state in the nation has at least eased some of their COVID-19 restrictions, and economists are hopeful that Americans will get back to work as businesses reopen.

Mississippians, though, continue to file new unemployment benefit claims at a high rate about 11 weeks into the crisis.

Although down from the peak of nearly 46,000 claims a week in early April, the Department of Labor reports new claims still numbered more than 24,000 for the week ending May 23. That number hasn’t substantially changed since the week ending May 2; the average of new claims for the past four weeks is 24,174.

It also brings the total number of Mississippians who have filed for benefits close to 300,000 people.

Claims for continued benefits after initial claims are also high. About 70% of people who have filed a first claim go on to file claims for additional weeks.

The figures likely do not include filers for federal unemployment benefits, which expanded benefits to many who were not eligible for benefits through state programs such as the self-employed and contract workers.

Here are the numbers since the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Mississippi on March 11. Note that the numbers for continued claims always lag a week.

Nationally, more than 2.1 million Americans filed for first-time benefits during the week ending May 23, bringing the total number of claimants in the U.S. to more than 40 million. The number of new claims have been declining for eight weeks.

With more and more states reopening after locking down due to the COVID-19 crisis, economists are hopeful that people will return to work and the unemployment rate will begin to drop. April’s national unemployment rate was 14.7%, the highest since the Great Depression. It is unlikely that May’s unemployment rate will be lower than that, with some experts predicting a rate of 20% or more. May’s rate will be released on Friday, June 5.

For the week ending May 16, the most recent DOL statistics show a decrease in the insured unemployment rate of 2.6% from the previous week. The rate for that week is 14.5%.

In raw numbers, Americans who filed continuing claims dipped by nearly 4 million, to 21.1 million from the previous week’s 25 million.

It is the first decline in continued claims since the crisis began. If it holds, it may be a good sign that people are going back to work.