Mississippi unemployment among the highest in the U.S.

Mississippi’s unemployment rate is among the highest in the nation.

At 18.8% for the week ending May 2, the Magnolia State is tied with Vermont at No. 8 among the 10 states with the highest unemployment rates according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The others were Nevada (23.5), Michigan (22.6), Washington (22.1), Rhode Island (19.9), New York (19.6), Connecticut (19.3), Puerto Rico (19.2), Vermont (18.8) and Georgia (18.5).

Nationwide, the unadjusted unemployment rate was 15.7% for the week ending May 9, an increase of 1.4 percentage points from the week before.

Another 2.4 million Americans filed first-time claims in the week ending May 16, bring the total claims filed to nearly 39 million over the past nine weeks.

In Mississippi, more than 270,000 new claims have been filed since mid-March. About 70% have filed continued claims in the following weeks. For the week ending May 9, continued claims amounted to nearly 189,000 people without work in the Magnolia State.

Mississippians are still reporting difficulty getting through on the telephone to the Mississippi Department of Employment Security. Numerous people have reported hourslong hold times and constant busy signals or being cut off when they finally reach a person to speak with.

The agency’s website is no help when a claimant has a problem. In some cases, people are reporting funds in their online MDES account, but no money transferred into their bank accounts. Other problems include being asked to show proof of a job search even though the governor waived that requirement weeks ago during the COVID-19 crisis.

MDES is aware of the problems. It has hired hundreds of people to help with the huge influx of new claims and the issues that come with them. Ten weeks into the crisis in Mississippi, the problems persist.