CITY OF LAS CRUCES

Las Cruces near the top for unemployment recovery

Posted Friday, July 17, 2020 12:21 pm

Las Cruces named fourth best-run city in U.S.

Whoever becomes the new Las Cruces city manager will inherit leadership of what the personal-finance website WalletHub has listed as the fourth best-run city in the United States.

For each city, WalletHub said it constructed a “Quality of City Services” score – comprising 38 performance indicators grouped into six service categories – that was then measured against the city’s total per-capita budget.

Here is how Las Cruces scored among the 150 cities included in the survey: (1=best run, 75=average); financial stability: 49; education: 44; health: 22; safety: 41; economy: 111; infrastructure and pollution: 76; total budget per capita: 9; states offering the most coronavirus support: 11.

Las Cruces was ranked 30th in quality of city services.

Nampa, Idaho was ranked No. 1 in the survey, followed by Boise, Idaho; Provo, Utah; Las Cruces; Durham, North Carolina; Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky; Missoula, Montana; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Nashua, New Hampshire.

The bottom 10 in the survey, ranked 141st-150th, were Flint, Michigan; Chicago; Detroit; Oakland, California; Hartford, Connecticut; New York City; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Gulfport, Mississippi; San Francisco; and Washington, D.C.

Albuquerque was ranked 25th in the survey, and El Paso was ranked 40th.

By Mike Cook

Las Cruces is rated as the sixth best city in America for unemployment recovery since the onset of COVID-19.

According to a report released Wednesday, July 1, Las Cruces has the second-best recovery among all states in its unemployment rate since the onset of COVID-19.

The report by the personal-finance website WalletHub says Las Cruces had the third-best recovery among 180 cities in the U.S. when May 2020 unemployment (4,025) is compared to January 2020 (2,478). That’s a change of 62.4 percent. Las Cruces is ranked second.

Las Cruces’ official unemployment rate for May 2020 is listed as 9 percent, the 20^th lowest in the U.S. But WalletHub said the adjusted rate is 11.1 percent when workers on temporary layoffs are counted.

The latest jobs report shows the national unemployment rate at 13.3 percent, 10 percent below the peak of 14.7 percent during the COVID-19 peak, WalletHub said. When adjusted for temporary layoffs, that figure could be 23 percent higher, the website said.

By way of comparison, New York City, which had, at one time, experienced the largest number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., showed a 365 percent increase in unemployment from January-May 2020, WalletHub said. The national average increase was 260 percent. New York City’s overall unemployment rate is 18.2 percent.

Ahead of Las Cruces in the overall national rankings were Lincoln, Nebraska, Washington, D.C., Omaha, Nebraska, New Haven, Connecticut, and Gilbert, Arizona. Seventh-14^th places in the survey were all Arizona cities. Albuquerque was listed as 15^th, and El Paso was ranked 100^th. The bottom five in the report were Honolulu, Las Vegas, Nevada, North Las Vegas, Nevada, Detroit and Orlando, Florida.

View the full report at www.wallethub.com/edu/cities-unemployment-rates/73647/.

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City of Las Cruces, unemployment recovery

Las Cruces near the top for unemployment recovery

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