Latest Unemployment Numbers Show More Than 165,000 in RI Out of Work

Latest Unemployment Numbers Show More Than 165,000 in RI Out of Work

Going into the coronavirus crisis and shutdown, approximately 20,000 Rhode Island residents were unemployed.

Since March, 119,728 have filed for unemployment insurance, 14,925 have filed for temporary disability insurance, and in just one day — Tuesday — 10,910 of so-called gig workers and individual small business owners filed for federal benefits in Rhode Island. 

A total of 165,563 Rhode Islanders are now out of work.

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Going into the crisis, the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training reported that the number of Rhode Islanders working in January was 539,100.

Thus, the Rhode Island employment rate is approaching 30%. It is important to note that some of the so-called gig economy workers were not counted in the overall workforce number.

National Rate Lower But Climbing

Former Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen on Monday in an interview with CNBC said the U.S. unemployment rate likely already sits at 12 or 13 percent, higher than its peak during the Great Recession.

Yellin graduated from Pembroke College (Brown University} in 1967.

“If we had a timely unemployment statistic, the unemployment rate probably would be up to 12 or 13 percent at this point and moving higher,” she said in a CNBC interview.

“Unemployment rates for a time may go to Depression levels. But this is very different than the Great Depression or the recession in the U.S. economy that we experienced in 2009 and after,” Yellen said. “It’s having severe economic effects, but if we’re successful in supporting people’s incomes during this time... I believe we will be able to get back to a normally functioning economy in much shorter order than during the Great Depression, after the Great Depression, or even the Great Recession.”