New Mexico unemployment claims continue to be among the highest in the U.S.

New Mexico continues to struggle with new unemployment claims, the personal finance website WalletHub said in a Dec. 9 news release.

A WalletHub report shows weekly unemployment claims in New Mexico increased by 57 percent the last week of November 2021 compared to the same time in 2019, the biggest increase in the United States.

Weekly unemployment claims in the state went up almost 105 percent the last week of November 2021 compared to the beginning of 2020, WalletHub said, which also was the country’s largest increase.

At the same time, WalletHub said current unemployment claims in New Mexico showed a decrease of almost 80 percent for the last week of November 2021 compared to the same week in 2020 – the 11^th biggest drop nationwide.

Overall, New Mexico was ranked 50^th among all states and the District of Columbia in its unemployment claims recovery from the last week in November as compared to the week before, and it was the 48^th most recovered since the start of the pandemic, WalletHub said.

All pandemic-related federal unemployment programs expired Sep. 4, 2021. New Mexico was not among the 25 states that opted out of federal benefits programs before that.

Those states most recovered in unemployment claims since the pandemic began are, according to WalletHub, ranked in order, Kansas, Florida, New Hampshire, South Carolina and South Dakota. The highest ranked states in the West for most recovered since Covid-19 began are Washington at No. 8 and Arizona at No. 9. Colorado was No. 24 and Texas was No. 39.

The bottom five, ranked in order from 51^st to 47^th were Washington, D.C., Rhode Island, Delaware, New Mexico and West Virginia.

WalletHub said there were 184,000 new unemployment claims nationwide, which is a lot fewer than the 6.1 million during the peak of the pandemic (a 97% reduction).

For the full report, visit https://wallethub.com/edu/states-unemployment-claims/72730.