MAY 9 STATE-BY-STATE JOB LOSS & MORTALITY REVIEW

Note: Early in the pandemic up through this post of May 11, 2020 E. D. Hovee posted weekly updates of current COVID mortality and job loss data. This post represent the most recent and last of five weekly updates.

This is an update to last week’s mortality data — now extended through the week of May 9/10. Updated mortality rates were posted with this blog May 11. U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) data is posted as of May 14 — but for the week ended May 9 — allowing for a more complete complete review.

We are now 8 weeks into the current economic crisis with this data review starting for the week ending March 21 with the initial surge of unemployment claims. This may be the last weekly posting of the unemployment/mortality comparison.

We have run out of space for the week-by-week graph comparisons. More substantively, blog posts will now turn to address opportunities and challenges associated with the business of re-opening America’s economy while mitigating mortality risk. As you have questions or suggestions, please email me at ehovee@edhovee.com.

New Jobless Claims Nationally

This is now the 8th straight week of continued massive counts of unemployment claims filed nationally — with another nearly 3.0 million claims (seasonally adjusted) filed the week ending May 9, 2020. Over these eight weeks, cumulative filings of initial unemployment claims as tallied by DOL now are approaching a cumulative total of 36.5 million.

Starting at over 3 million claims the week ending March 21, new filings doubled to the 6-7 million range each of the following two weeks, then eased off somewhat to the 5+ million level the week ending April 11, then to 4.5 million the following week, then to 3.9 million, declining further to 3.2 million new claims, and then to just under 3.0 million for for the most recent week ending May 9.

The analysis with this week’s posting again includes a comparison with continued unemployment claims. This reflects adjustments during the 2nd week after initial filing when counts are pared to continued claims eligible for unemployment insurance payments, as well as for persons finding re-employment. As these adjustments lag behind by one week, the number of continued claims nationally (as of the week ending May 2) was 22.8 million.

STATE-BY-STATE JOBLESS REVIEW

As in prior weeks, this update includes a comparison of experience for the 50 states plus two territories and the District of Columbia (DC) for the weekly unemployment periods ending March 21, March 28, April 4, April 11, April 18, April 25, May 2 and now May 9. Data is shown as a % of base pre-recession employment levels. Note: State-level DOL data is only available on a basis that is not seasonally adjusted.

Ten states now have cumulative 8-week initial unemployment filings that exceed 30% of their pre-recession covered job base — again led this most recent week by Georgia but at the extraordinary rate of 42% — followed by Kentucky, Connecticut, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Washington, Michigan, Nevada, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. Nationally, claims average out to a 23% share of pre-recession employment.

Eight of the top 10 jobless states remain in the same relative position as was the case during the preceding week - with two exceptions. In one week, Connecticut leaped up from the group of states in the bottom one-third of jobless rates to the #3 highest rate. Unemployment claims went from a cumulative total of 18% joblessness to 36% based on filings of this most recent week. Reasons for this situation are not entirely clear. Also noted is that Washington state went from the 9th to 6th highest jobless claims rate based on a substantial number of new claims for this most recent week ending May 9.

The 10 states (plus DC) with the lowest unemployment rates are the same as noted for the prior week, though there have been some minor changes in rankings. Texas his improved its already low jobless claims ranking as has the District of Columbia (DC).

While the pace of unemployment filings slowed once again in the week ending May 9 for most states, there were seven states for which filings increased as compared to the prior week ending May 2. Those with more filings are Georgia, Connecticut, Washington, Florida, New York, Wisconsin, and South Dakota. This is a grouping for which there appears to be no clear consistency of geographic pattern.

CONTINUED UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS

With seven weeks of data now in hand, it is now more useful to review the experience of continued unemployment claims (for those determined to be covered by unemployment insurance and not yet re-employed). This appears to be a still somewhat volatile metric, depending in part on where various states stand in clearing their backlog of claims.

With continued claims lagging one week behind initial filings, the total number of insured unemployed for the nation totals 22.8 million (on a seasonally adjusted basis) for the week ending May 2 — up by just over 450,000 from the prior week. This equates to 15.7% of pre-recession covered employment.

State-by-state data is reported on a seasonally unadjusted basis. The pattern of states with the highest rates of continued unemployment for those insured is somewhat different than for states with the highest rates of initial filings. The #1 state for the week ending May 2 is Oregon with continued claims representing 26% of the pre-recession covered employment base.

The other nine places in the top 10 are Nevada, Washington, Michigan, Mississippi, Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, Puerto Rico and Vermont. This reflects a combination of northeastern and western states together with outliers of Michigan, Mississippi and Puerto Rico.

The top 10 listing experienced one major change from May 2 to the week ending May 9. California went from #1 position with the highest continued claims rate to #18 as its continued claims dropped from 4.8 million to 2.9 million in one week.

Of this top 10 grouping, five are also in the top 10 with respect to initial filings. The outliers that rank higher with respect to jobless insured versus all claims are Oregon, Mississippi, New York, Puerto Rico and Vermont.

By comparison, seven of the 10 states with the lowest initial filings are also the states with the lowest rates of continued claims as a proportion of total covered employment. Three states — Idaho, Kansas and Montana rank higher in terms of initial unemployment filings than with continued claimant rates.

STATE-BY STATE MORTALITY REVIEW

Through the weekend of May 9/10, an estimated 79,320 COVID-19 deaths represent a less than a 3% add-on to the 2.8-2.9 million deaths (from all sources) typically occurring across the U.S. With 11,575 new deaths, the latest week’s mortality is the lowest it has been since the week ending April 4. Barring a resurgence, it appears the nation has come across and is now dropping down the backside of the COVID mortality curve.

This blog post has focused on providing an update of cumulative deaths per million residents for each state. As with prior weeks, mortality data is from the New York Times (NYT) daily log (which was apparently bumped up the prior week ending May 2 to include some New York deaths for which COVID-19 is now viewed as the the presumed but not definitive cause of death).

Our composite data set starts with COVID deaths up to March 29, then proceeds with added deaths for each of the six following weeks to achieve cumulative totals as of the week ending May 9/10. (Note: Detailed counts with the New York Times listing can vary over the course of a 24-hour period as counts are regularly updated and the numbers used by this blog reflect the time of day at which the data is pulled).

As illustrated by the following graph, the U.S. COVID mortality rate as of this most recent week is now at just under 240 deaths per million U.S. residents. There are 10 states plus the District of Columbia that are above the national average rate — led by New York at a figure approaching 1,380 deaths per million. There were only 2,215 COVID deaths recorded for New York state during this most recent week, less than half the average experienced across the five earlier weeks (since the week ending March 29).

There continues to be substantial variation between the state with the highest mortality rate (New York at 1,380 deaths per million population) — more than 125 times the state with the lowest mortality to date (for Alaska at less than 11 deaths per million residents).

There are 10 states plus the District of Columbia (DC) with COVID mortality rates that exceed the national average. This is a group that remains unchanged over the last week — albeit with DC now moving ahead of Michigan in terms of death rate per million residents. Of the 11 states, eight are situated in the mid-Atlantic to New England regions of the U.S. The anomalies are Louisiana, Michigan and Illinois.

Of these 11 geographies, there were only three for which this most recent week was their highest mortality week to date — Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. The other eight states have dropped down below prior mortality rates — some substantially so.

STATES WITH BELOW AVERAGE MORTALITY

As suggested by this wide spread in mortality, a better view of the experience for states with mortality below the national average is presented by the following more detailed graph covering 40 states and Puerto Rico. All are below the national average cumulative mortality toll of just under 240 deaths per million residents nationwide as of May 9/10.

There are eight states with death rates in the range of 100-240 per million, another 17 with rates of 50-100, and 15 plus Puerto Rico still in the lowest range of less than 50 COVID deaths per million in-state residents.

The week ending May 9 represented a peak weekly mortality rate for 14 states — down from 19 the previous week. Of these 14 states, 11 have below average mortality as compared with the entire nation.

States in the 100-240 deaths per million range (below the U.S. average) but experiencing this last week as their peak mortality period to date are Mississippi and Minnesota. In the 50-100 mortality range are New Hampshire, Iowa, Missouri, Alabama, Florida and Arizona at what are peaking rates.

Of the 15 states plus Puerto Rico that have mortality rates of under 50 deaths per million residents, four experienced peak mortality for this most recent week — North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and Utah. Despite low overall mortality, these states evidence hot spot activity important to monitor.

This leaves 28 states plus Puerto Rico as double winners (up from 15 the prior week ) — experiencing overall average low mortality and no new peaking this last week. At present, these appear to offer the clearest cases to date for start or continuation of business re-opening.

SUMMARY NOTES

As described in more detail for the blog posting with the prior week ending May 2, it continues to appear that COVID-related mortality rates have leveled off and are now starting a downward trajectory. At the same time, unemployment claims — while still high from a historical perspective — are continuing to decline on a week-to-week basis.

Considerable variations are evident across the states — in terms of joblessness and even more so with COVID-19 related deaths. While there will undoubtedly be state- and local-level successes and failures along the way, each state and region of the country now is in position to tailor jurisdiction-specific approaches reflecting greater understanding of local needs and opportunities.

Re-opening can be expected to continue as an iterative process — speeding up or slowing the pace based on real-time experience monitoring with clearly articulated employment and mortality metrics.

THE CHANGING LINK BETWEEN COVID-19 & JOBLESSNESS

What a difference a week makes! And not for the better.

In one week from March 29 - April 4, the U.S. coronavirus mortality rate quadrupled from a cumulative total of 7 to 28 deaths per million U.S. residents. The number of new unemployment claimants has gone from over 10 million to nearly 17 million jobless. Claimants in the last three weeks now equate to about 10.4% of the normalized base of 145+ million U.S. workers covered by unemployment insurance.

This blog post updates statistical information posted on April 4 regarding the state-by-state relationship between COVID-19 and joblessness. And this week, our update also looks at the breathtaking changes in both metrics as have occurred in just one week’s time.

Note: For this review, information is as of an April 4 weekly report (the latest for unemployment claims). In contrast, COVID-19 death data is posted daily. As of April 11, the nationwide COVID-19 mortality rate had jumped from 28 deaths per million population (on April 4) to over 65 deaths (April 11), led by dramatic increases in New York mortality (as shown by the map on our website home page). This linkage review will be updated for April 11 jobless data when this updated employment data is next made available Thursday, April 16.

EARLY APRIL UPDATE

The following graph compares cumulative unemployment claims filed during the weeks ending March 21, March 28 and April 4 with COVID-19 mortality as of April 4.

As with last week’s chart, cumulative unemployment claims over a 3-week period are calculated as a % of total covered employment, by state. Mortality is calculated in terms of the number of COVID-19 related deaths per million residents, by state.

If you were to compare this week’s scatterplot with that of last week, the most obvious change is that the variability of outcomes has greatly widened. As of March 29, New York’s cumulative mortality rate was 50 coronavirus deaths per million residents. One week later, the mortality rate had more than quadrupled — to about 214 deaths per million population as of April 4 (a number that has again more than doubled to 482 deaths per million as of April 11).

And the span of joblessness has widened. As of March 28, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island had experienced unemployment claims equaling 13.8% of total base employment. As of April 4, Rhode Island’s rate has jumped to 19.4%.

Several other items are of note in with this update:

• There is much greater spread of mortality rates than before. In addition to New York, the states of New Jersey and Louisiana have mortality rates at just over 100 deaths per million residents. Michigan now tops 50. All other states and territories have mortality rates of less than 50 deaths per million.

• There is also a much wider range of unemployment claims — from 4% to nearly 20% of the total workforce covered by unemployment insurance. At the upper end of the spectrum are Rhode Island, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Hawaii, all in the 16-20% range. The lowest rate is noted for South Dakota at 4%. Despite having almost off the chart mortality, New York’s 8.4% rate of unemployment claims is below the nationwide 3-week cumulative rate of 10.4%.

• And there is now a circled group of about 25 states (with Washington D.C. included) that so far have experienced a combination of relatively low mortality (below 45 deaths per million population) and low rates of unemployment claims (below 10%). This group includes some very rural as well as urban states - with strong representation from the sunbelt and mid-America. These are the states that, so far, might be considered as either best practice examples or just plain lucky as compared to the other half of states.

Focusing more on what is working well for half the states may help in determining a path out for further curve flattening and for economic recovery. But before jumping too quickly to conclusions, we shift the analysis to also consider changes of the last week - both in mortality and joblessness.

CHANGES IN COVID-19 DEATHS VS JOB LAYOFFS

An added feature of this update involves comparing outcomes of the period ending March 28 with April 4, one week later. The following graph displays much of the same information as the prior illustrative depicting trends in coronavirus morality versus job layoffs. The difference is that the prior graph showed the pattern of deaths versus layoffs as of a single point in time (April 4) — while the following graph shows the change from one week to the next (from March 28/29 - April 4).

As shown by the graph:

• Just 8 states experienced an increase of COVID-19 mortality of at least 20 deaths per million residents in the most recent week ending April 4. Led by New York (with a week-over-week increase of nearly 165 deaths per million, other places with mortality increases of 20 or more per million residents were New Jersey, Louisiana, Michigan, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The increase in mortality rates nationwide averaged 21 deaths per million residents.

• All the remaining states experienced mortality rate increases of 20 added deaths per million residents or less. The extent to which these slower rates of increased mortality is due to good public policy, lower population density, and/or just plain luck varies widely across these states.

• There also is wide disparity in the job layoff patterns across these states with slower growth in mortality rates. Georgia’s unemployment claims increased by 9% of the employed work force in the one week ended April 4. At the other end of the spectrum, Colorado’s unemployment claims increased by less than 2% points. In effect, there appears to be no guaranteed employment reward for those states that have contained the death toll, to date.

A PATH TO ECONOMIC RECOVERY?

At long last, serious discussion about re-starting the American economy is beginning to get underway. At this point, there is as yet no certainty as to the appropriate mechanisms or timeline for Americans going back to work. This is likely to be a subject of intense debate from health care and economic perspectives, not to mention anticipated differences across the political spectrum

Are there any observations from this coronavirus and joblessness discussion worth considering as part of this emerging policy debate? Three observations are suggested:

• First, as has been previously suggested, this updated review further reinforces the observation that national and state-level policy should not be framed around the assumption that “one size fits all.” New York’s experience (together with that of adjoining states) is well beyond the pale of what has been or is likely to be experienced across much of the rest of the country. This is made abundantly clear by the very different curve flattening trajectory that the nation’s most populous state — California — has followed. And the experience of a California is yet different from that of a Wyoming or South Dakota — where mortality rates increased at 0 and 1 deaths per million residents over this most recent week.

• Second, this analysis does suggest that continuous monitoring of changing mortality may serve as a useful guidepost for determining which states are best positioned to ease away form their business shutdowns — and how quickly. States like New York, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Michigan appear to warrant continued lockdown until the mortality growth rates ease back to the national average (or to below zero). Other places like DC, Connecticut and Pennsylvania that have been relatively calm so far may be erupting as data over the next one to two weeks may demonstrate — warranting more intensive measures at least temporarily.

  Conversely, states that have consistently held mortality increases to well below the national average gain of 21 deaths per million this last week (to a gain of, say, no more than 10 deaths per added million), appear to be the best candidates right now for potential relaxation of shutdown requirements. Of 52 states and territories, 36 appear to be in this category right now. Of these, 20 are below a mortality gain of 5 per million for the week ended April 4.

  As the country reaches the peak of mortality in the days or weeks ahead, the weekly change in national COViD-19 should go to zero and then negative. As the weekly mortality threshold for America declines, states remaining below the national curve offer the best case to be the most quickly rewarded with economic re-boot. This type of monitoring and economic adjustment may be required not only in the weeks ahead but over an extended period to limit the risk of re-infections longer term.

• Third, a similar but more nuanced approach might be taken to states experiencing unemployment claims well above the national average. To what extent are higher rates due to earlier shutdowns, different industry mix (as with a high proportion of businesses dependent on face-to-face contact), unusually draconian business closure requirements, or other factors? Encourage states with unduly high rates but without demonstrable mortality benefit to begin opening sectors posing the least risks of virus transmission.

THE JOBLESS TRAJECTORY: STATE-BY-STATE

As of this morning (Thursday, April 2), the U.S. Department of Labor has released the latest week’s unemployment insurance claims. In the week ending March 28, more than 6.6 million Americans filed new initial unemployment claims. This more than doubled the 3.3 million claims filed last week - which itself was briefly the largest single week of jobless claims in U.S. history.

This most recent week’s claims far surpassed economists projections of what the continuing (or escalating) economic damage would be. As the Wall Street Journal went to press late April 1, it was citing a survey of economists who predicted about 3.1 million filed claims — about the same as the week before. The actual result was more than twice the prediction.

The blog begins with a look at national unemployment filings — followed by a state-by-state overview.

National Experience Summarized

Up until the week of March 21, the U.S. had been experiencing an average of just about 250,000 initial unemployment filings per week. As illustrated by the following graph, if one adds the seasonally adjusted figure of 282,000 for the week of March 14 to the 3.3 million filed on March 21 to the 6.6+ million of March 28, the cumulative total claims filed over the last three weeks is about 10.2 million (as a seasonally adjusted figure).

If considered in terms of data that is not seasonally adjusted, the cumulative 3-week claims figure is 9.0 million - as the winter is usually a period of slower economic activity than other times of the year.

This last three-week experience accounts 7.0% of the nation’s 145 million workers covered by unemployment insurance (on a seasonally adjusted basis), or a somewhat lower figure of 6.2% (in raw unadjusted terms). Prior to mid-March, typical weekly filings accounted for less than 0.2% of the nation’s covered job base.

Note: Weekly claims data are not the same as the nation’s unemployment rate — which stood at 3.5% as of February 2020, increased to 4.4% as of March. This is based on survey data which includes unemployed not covered by insurance, as of about March 12 (just before significant layoffs got underway). Due to timing of the survey process, monthly reports likely will understate the actual rate of real-time unemployment over the period that layoffs continue.

STATE-BY-STATE REVIEW

State-level data is summarized on a basis similar to that of the national data — albeit with two caveats:

• State-wide data is only available on a basis that is not seasonally adjusted; and

• Instead of providing raw numbers of unemployment claim, the analysis normalizes the data across large and small states by discussing unemployment claims as a percentage of each state’s covered employment base.

So, let’s take a look. The following graph shows the experience of each of the 50 states plus territories over the weekly unemployment claim periods ending March 14, 21 and 28. Total claims as a % of the state’s total employment base are depicted in rank order, from the most to least impacted.

On initial review, a few items are noted about this rank ordering:

• Pennsylvania and Rhode Island appear to the be most impacted states with unemployment filings through March 28 — with 3-week filings at 13.8% of their respective states’ employment base.

• The top 5 most impacted are rounded out by Nevada, Michigan, and Washington — each at about 10+%. This top five grouping includes three industrial states plus Washington affected early with the virus outbreak and Stay Home requirements, and Nevada which is heavily reliant on tourism.

• In total, 23 states are more impacted than the national average of 6.2%. This is an interesting mix of states — with representation from both coasts plus some states (such as Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana) from the industrial heartland.

• Somewhat surprisingly, California, Illinois and New York rank near the middle in terms of layoffs to date. While intensely urban in parts, other significant portions of these states consist of smaller communities that may not yet be as impacted by COVID-19 and associated business curtailment.

• Least impacted to date are the Virgin Islands with only 1% of jobs affected — followed by South Dakota. The lesser impacted states appear to be more rural and/or slower to put in place state-wide social distancing, shelter-in-place, business closure, or other lockdown requirements.

All-in-all, this listing indicates a disparate range of employment displacement experience (with anywhere from 1% to 14% of statewide employment affected through March). A logical question is whether this diversity of experience warrants different, custom-made policy and regulatory initiatives, rather than “one size fits all.” The counter-argument is that states with minimal impact are likely to catch up, leveling the playing field, as virus impacts inevitably widen and/or national policy transitions from guidance to mandates.

Look for more to come - with a deeper dive into the linkage between job displacement and COVID-19 experience.