The data has been compiled by the personal finance site WalletHub, and it includes employment statistics and payment loan requests.
In terms of jobs growth, U.S. employment data provides an indication that the market is recovering. Overall, the national unemployment rate has fallen to 8.4 percent, which is 43 percent below the peak of 14.7 percent during the highest infection rates recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For their analysis, WalletHub have drawn on statistics compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since the official government data has erroneously not counted some workers on temporary layoffs as unemployed, the data has been adjusted to reflect this using a correction factor (in terms of the real unemployment rate being some 8 percent higher than reported).
In terms of cities that are showing the strongest employment growth, these are:
1. Nampa, ID
2. Gilbert, AZ
3. Lincoln, NE
4. Bismarck, ND
5. Peoria, AZ
6. Sioux Falls, SD
7. Chandler, AZ
8. Juneau, AK
9. Boise, ID
10. Mesa, AZ
In terms of the employment data a pattern is apparent between coronavirus cases and unemployment levels. For example, with New York City, which has experienced a very high level of COVID-19 incidences, New York City has experienced a 354 percent increase in unemployment from January 2020 to August 2020.
In terms of the political divide, according to Jill Gonzalez, WalletHub analyst: “With an average rank of 24 among the most recovered states, blue states had a better recovery from unemployment claims last week than red states, which rank 28 on average.”
Cities with worse employment rates tend to be the areas where loan take-up is higher. Hence a different ranking is produced when states with the highest loan rates is produced. The top ten under this category are:
1. New York
2. Virginia
3. Washington
4. Pennsylvania
5. West Virginia
6. Michigan
7. Florida
8. Oklahoma
9. South Carolina
10. Alabama
For the loans analysis, WalletHub took internal credit report data and compiled this with data from a Google search to consider increases for three loan-related terms. The data was then matched according to states.
