Unbelievable Unemployment Numbers in Minnesota

Among other things that came out of the daily press briefing in Minnesota (Briefing)  yesterday was a set of horrifying unemployment numbers.  450,000 Minnesotans have filed for unemployment benefits.  Just so you understand, the number of actual jobs lost is much higher.  People who have severance can’t file yet, and there are layoffs still occurring and not everyone has applied.  Just the number who have filed is twice as many as filed for unemployment in all of 2019.  It is 14% of all the Minnesota workforce.  25% of those applying had a high school diploma or less, so these are the poorest workers.  And 26% of the entire minority workforce have lost their jobs and applied for benefits.

Out of that pool of unemployed there will be suicides, mental illness, excess deaths, divorces, child and domestic abuse, and a variety of other non-economic harms.  And so far we have seen absolutely no evidence that any studies or analyses or modeling was done by the state to either project or consider these losses.  This is absolutely disgraceful.