Rutgers economist William Rodgers III (a former chief economist at the Department of Labor) and the Century Foundation’s Andrew Stettner built a model using these kinds of unemployment claims numbers to predict the unemployment rate. Plugging in the most recent claims data, they estimate a true unemployment rate in March of 17 percent. In some states, they find the unemployed share is far greater than that: 44.9 percent in Louisiana, 44.6 percent in New Hampshire, 34.6 percent in Pennsylvania.
Meet the 2026 New Jersey Leadership Collective Fellows
New Jersey Leadership Collective’s mission is to train leaders who are committed to moving the communities they serve and the Garden State forward. They aim to make progressive change to legislation and policies through building collective power and taking collective...