Unemployment Claims Continue to Decline While People Receiving Benefits Eased to 17 Million

In the week ending July 11, new unemployment claims decreased to 1.3 million, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's revised level. In the meantime, continued claims, which show how many Americans received unemployment benefits, fell to 17 million a decrease of 422,000 from the previous week's revised level. As the data shows, there is a gradual decline in job losses from the COVID-19.

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.

Eighteen states reported a decrease in new claims for the week ending July 11. Maryland, Texas, and New Jersey were the states with the highest decline in new unemployment claims compared to the previous week. Specifically, the number of new claims dropped by 14,534 in Maryland; 11,509 in Texas; and 10,055 in New Jersey.

However, unadjusted advance claims increased in Florida, Georgia, and California. Particularly, the number of advance claims increased by 62,467 claims in Florida; 31,176 in Georgia; and 22,941 in California.

Taking a closer look at the percentage change of the last week’s new claims with the new claims of the previous week, New Hampshire (-56%) had the largest drop in layoffs followed by Maryland (-44%) and Michigan (-28%). In contrast, in Florida, layoffs increased 93% from the previous week followed by Alaska (63%) and Maine (59%).

Moreover, the current release provides information about people filing new and total Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). Among 47 states, 14.3 million people received benefits in the week ending on June 27 using the federal government’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. Nearly 400,000 more people claimed to receive PUA benefits compared to a week earlier. Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Maryland had the most people receiving PUA benefits.  Specifically, 64% of the labor force in Arizona received PUA benefits in the week ending June 27 followed by Pennsylvania (48%) and Maryland (23%).

The map below shows you the percentage change of layoffs for each state. Click on a state in the map below to see how many layoffs occurred every week within the last year.