With 20.6, Puerto Rico has the second rate of unemployment insured (that is, people receiving unemployment insurance) highest in the United States, second only to the state of Nevada, with 22.6.
This was revealed by the statistics released yesterday by the Federal Department of Labor (DOL, in English).
In those statistics, Puerto Rico and Nevada are followed by Hawaii (18.3), New York (17.8), California (17.3), Michigan (16.9), Louisiana (16.2), Massachusetts (16.2), Virgin Islands (16.2) and Connecticut (15.8), according to DOL data from June 6.
Those same data revealed that some 29,556 initial claims for regular unemployment insurance and the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program were submitted by citizens in Puerto Rico last week, which ended on Saturday, June 20.
Of those initial claims, 9,043 were from regular unemployment insurance and 20,513 from the PUA program.
In the case of claims for regular unemployment benefit, they were 946 more than the 8,097 filed the previous week, which ended on June 13. As of that date, the total number of people receiving unemployment insurance was 194,502, which represented an increase of 18,528 people compared to the 175,974 who received the benefit the week ending June 6.
Due to the pandemic of COVID-19, the federal government approved a benefit of additional $ 600 per week, for four months, until July 31.
As for the PUA, last week’s figure represented an increase of just 12 initial claims compared to the 20,501 submitted the week of June 13 in Puerto Rico, according to the DOL.
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