by Bruce Walker
Minnesota initial unemployment claims fell slightly by 3,305 claims for the week ending July 18.
That’s not enough to wipe out entirely the 1,623 week-over-week increase in new claims for the week ending July 11.
The state is still clambering to find its footing in the unemployment wilderness.
Minnesota’s unemployment stands at 333,363 total claims as of July 18, according to U.S. Department of Labor data released Thursday morning.
The DOL reported 18,332 new claims in Minnesota for the week ending July 18, a decrease of 3,305 new claims from the previous week’s 21,637 initial claims.
National numbers jumped 109,000 initial claims for the week ending July 18 to 1,416,000 total claims, bumping the nation’s unemployment to just above 11 percent.
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending July 11 were in Florida (+65,890), Georgia (+33,292), California (+20,123), Washington (+16,116), and Indiana (+6,258), while the largest decreases were in Maryland (-13,728), Texas (-11,583), New Jersey (-8,577), Michigan (-6,882), and Louisiana (-5,066).
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending July 4 were in Puerto Rico (26.0), Nevada (21.3), Hawaii (20.7), Georgia (18.0), California (16.9), Louisiana (16.6), New York (16.1), Connecticut (15.4), the Virgin Islands (15.2), and Massachusetts (15.0).
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Bruce Walker is a regional editor at The Center Square. He previously worked as editor at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s MichiganScience magazine and The Heartland Institute’s InfoTech & Telecom News.
