More than 600,000 Minnesotans have filed for unemployment since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), the state has had 633,405 applications for unemployment insurance since March 16. That number represents a little more than 20 percent of the state’s workforce, Fox 9 reported Wednesday.
As of Thursday, both Hennepin and Ramsey counties had an unemployment rate of 21 percent. Cook County’s workforce has been hit the hardest by the pandemic, with 32 percent of its labor force filing for unemployment. However, the county had zero confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Thursday. Cook County is one of just three counties in Minnesota with no confirmed cases.
Around 200,000 unemployment applications were filed in the first two weeks of the pandemic, but the state continues to see between 3,000 and 9,000 applications per day. Since the beginning of May, about 35,000 Minnesotans have filed for unemployment.
As of April 24, Minnesota had 536,742 unemployment claims, meaning the state has seen 96,663 new applications in the past two weeks.
March 18 saw the most applications in a single day when 32,176 Minnesotans filed for unemployment insurance.
Nationally, an additional 3.17 million Americans filed for unemployment in the week ending May 2, bringing the total number of unemployment claims filed over the past seven weeks to 33.5 million.
Gov. Tim Walz’s revised stay-at-home order allows retail establishments to conduct curbside pick-up and delivery. His office estimated that the revision would allow up to 30,000 Minnesotans to return to work.
Two lawsuits have been filed against Gov. Walz and his administration by small business owners who believe the coronavirus restrictions are unconstitutional.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun and The Ohio Star. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
In my humble opinion, it is past time for the city councils in every rural town in the entire state to start fighting for the survival of their economies. It makes no sense whatsoever for any town where there are no confirmed cases of the Coronavirus to be shut down.
The governor needs to understand that the entire state is not in the same situation as the metro area. There are 87 counties in Minnesota. As of yesterday, 5/10/2020, there were 3 counties in Minnesota where there have been no cases of the virus. There are 9 counties where the number of confirmed cases total 4,019 and there have been 27 deaths. There are 7 counties that have a total of 6,346 confirmed Coronavirus cases and there have been 536 deaths.
The 7 counties account for 53.78% of all confirmed cases and 90.69% of all deaths. The 9 other counties account for 34.06% of all confirmed cases and 4.57% of all deaths. The 68 counties account for 12.16% of all confirmed cases and 4.74% of all deaths. Of those 68 counties, there are 54 that have reported zero deaths.