Unemployment Rates During the COVID-19 Pandemic: In Brief

"The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a significant effect on unemployment in every state, industry, and major demographic group in the United States. This report provides information on which groups have experienced the largest increases in unemployment rates since the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Young workers, women, workers with low educational attainment, part-time workers, and racial and ethnic minorities had relatively high unemployment rates in April. Many, but not all, of these groups had relatively high rates in August as well. The report also compares the overall unemployment rate during the current recession with the unemployment rate experienced during the Great Recession. This report shows the following:

 The unemployment rate peaked at an unprecedented level, not seen since data collection started in 1948, in April (14.7%) before declining to a still-high level in August (8.4%).

 In April, every state and the District of Columbia reached unemployment rates greater than their highest unemployment rates during the Great Recession.

 Unemployment is concentrated in industries that provide in-person services. Notably, the Leisure and Hospitality industry experienced an unemployment rate of 39.3% in April, before declining to 21.3% in August.

 Part-time workers experienced an unemployment rate almost twice that of their full-time counterparts in April (24.5% vs. 12.9%), but this gap has since narrowed.

 Workers without a college degree experienced worse unemployment rates in April (e.g., 21.2% for workers with no high school degree) than workers with a Bachelor’s degree or higher (8.4%). The gap between educated and less-educated workers remained in August.

 Teenaged women experienced an unemployment rate of 36.6% in April, and teenaged men, 28.6%; compared with 13.7% for women and 12.1% for men ages 25-54. The gap between men and women has since narrowed overall, but young workers are still experiencing relatively high rates of unemployment.

 Racial and ethnic minorities had relatively high unemployment rates in April (16.7% for Black workers compared to 14.2% for White workers, and 18.9% for Hispanic workers compared to 13.6% for non-Hispanic workers), and these gaps persisted in August..."
Unemployment rates