American Employment and the Pandemic: COVID-19 Cases and Job Recovery by State and Political Affiliation

COVID-19 has led to stunning economic disruption. Through multiple waves of infection, including Delta variant driving the most recent surges in cases, some states have struggled to find public health measures that balance job growth with preserving public safety.

While many businesses have reopened since the early days of the pandemic, 5.3 million jobs are still missing. MoneyGeek analyzed employment and COVID-19 case data by state to find which states recovered the most jobs and what measures correlated with their success.

Summary Findings:

• Fourteen states have fully recovered jobs lost since the beginning of the pandemic and have jobs numbers higher than they did in February 2020. On average, the U.S. is 3% below pre-pandemic employment levels, with Hawaii and Nevada still missing 9% of jobs.
• Blue states grew jobs 37% faster than red states as of July 2021. When vaccines became widely available from April to July, blue states increased their jobs twice as quickly as red states.
• Due to the timing of jobs data releases, it’s too early to tell if removing expanded unemployment insurance drove job creation.

To understand how economic recovery and public health influenced each other in 2021, MoneyGeek analyzed the rate of COVID-19 cases and deaths and how they related to jobs recovered in every state. MoneyGeek divided states based on their political leaning to see if there were any meaningful differences in COVID-19 cases and deaths compared to job recovery. See the methodology section of this analysis for our criteria for determining red and blue states.

MoneyGeek’s 2021 analysis found that blue states had a 37% faster job growth rate than red states from January 2021 to July 2021. Job growth between red and blue states was comparable until April when vaccines became more widely available. Since then, blue states have increased their jobs at double the rate of red states.

Red states had nearly three times the rate of COVID-19 cases per job added than blue states. For every job added to the economy, red states had 3.5 COVID-19 cases, while blue states had 1.3 cases.

As of July 2021, red and blue states recovered the same percentage of jobs lost since the April 2020 low. However, blue states lost more jobs than red states at the start of the pandemic, making it more difficult for them to recover jobs to pre-pandemic levels.

MoneyGeek also analyzed the number of new COVID-19 cases per job recovered for each individual state. The table below data shows our analysis for each state, as well as the state's political affiliation.

Based on our analysis, Ohio — a red state — had the highest number of COVID-19 cases per job recovered, while Maine — a blue state — had the lowest. Ohio also had the highest number of COVID-19 deaths per job gained.

In a July 2020 analysis, MoneyGeek found that red states recovered 35% more jobs than blue states — 65% compared to 48%. However, red-state recovery rates came at a higher cost to public health, with 99% more COVID-19 cases and 78% more deaths per recovered job than blue states.

When looking at data from April to December 2020, we found that jobs recovered for red and blue states were comparable (12% versus 11%, respectively). We also found that cases and deaths per job recovered were similar for blue and red states. Based on these findings, it seems that the red and blue states’ approaches to the pandemic didn’t yield meaningful differences in job growth and COVID-19 cases during the latter part of 2020.

​​On May 4, 2021, Governor Gianforte of Montana announced the end of expanded unemployment benefits in the state, along with return-to-work bonuses for those going back to work. Since then, 25 other states have ended their extended unemployment benefits early. Initially, unemployment benefits were set to expire between June 12 and July 10. For the rest of the nation, extended unemployment benefits ended in September.

Our analysis of job growth shows limited support that the early end of extended unemployment impacted jobs numbers in July 2021.

The 21 states that ended extended unemployment benefits by June 30 grew jobs by 1.2% from May to July. States that didn't end extended unemployment until September increased jobs by 1.3% from June to July. Based on these results, there isn't enough evidence to indicate that one policy approach has been more successful than the other.

MoneyGeek’s July 2021 analysis found that 14 states fully recovered to jobs levels above those in February of 2020, the month before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Led by South Dakota, these 14 states had lower initial job losses than many others, which may have contributed to their relatively quick recoveries.

Despite continued job recovery since April 2020, the United States is still missing 5.3 million jobs lost since February 2020. Nevada and Hawaii — both heavily dependent on the leisure and hospitality industries — remain the least recovered states in the nation for employment.

The MoneyGeek data analysis team examined monthly employment data by state from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and COVID-19 cases and deaths from Johns Hopkins.

We identified the lowest monthly employment number since February 2020 and compared it to February's employment levels to calculate the total lost jobs due to COVID-19. The number of recovered jobs was calculated as the gain in jobs from the lowest employment month to the current month.

The team analyzed monthly employment numbers nationally and by state. We identified the most consistent recent trend as showing jobs declining from Fall 2020 until January 2021. From there, we saw steady job growth through July 2021. Job growth percentage is calculated as the gain in jobs from January 2021 through July 2021, divided by the jobs in January 2021.

MoneyGeek identified the low point for new national COVID-19 cases after the 2020 Holidays as March 14, 2021. Data before this date was excluded from the analysis because of the lag in the impact from the spike in cases over the holiday period. Data after this date reflects the effect of both the vaccine rollout and — most recently — increases in cases and deaths due to the Delta variant. The growth rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths was assessed from March 14, 2021, through August 24, 2021 — the most recent date that case and death data was available at the time of analysis.

Cases Per 100 Jobs: Reported COVID-19 cases (see methodology above) divided by Jobs Recovered multiplied by 100.

Deaths Per 10,000 Jobs: Reported COVID-19 related deaths (see COVID-19 data methodology above) divided by Jobs Recovered multiplied by 10,000.

Low Month: The state's month of lowest employment since February 2020.

Lost Jobs: The decline in jobs between February 2020 and either the Low Month or the most recent month for which there is data, depending on how it's used in that section.

Lost Jobs (%): Lost Jobs divided by the February 2020 jobs as reported by the BLS.

Jobs Recovered: The difference in jobs from the current period to the jobs in the Low Month.

Jobs Recovered (%): Jobs Recovered divided by the absolute value of Lost Jobs from February to the Low Month.

Political Party Voting History: Red and blue labels were used to define each state by the voting history in the past five presidential elections. States where the republican candidate won three out of the five elections were labeled as red, and states where the Democratic candidate won three out of the five elections were labeled as blue.

Recovered Jobs as % of February Jobs: Jobs Recovered divided by the February 2020 jobs as reported by the BLS. This measure is used to assess the impact of the recovered jobs.

Job Growth (2021 %): The increase in jobs from January 2021 to July 2021, divided by the January 2021 jobs as reported by the BLS.