South Dakota unemployment claims up this week

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - South Dakota saw a 70% increase in unemployment claims last week when compared to the week before it, according to a report by WalletHub.

This increase was also compared to the same week last year and was found to be 65% higher than that as well. However, when comparing this stat to pre-pandemic numbers it is only a 15% increase, suggesting that there are multiple factors that created this change. An analyst from Wallethub says the main contributing factor is likely inflation.

“Given that inflation is still quite high, the federal reserve is still raising interest rates in hopes that inflation will be curved but for inflation to slow that means the unemployment rate has to increase so I would expect to see these numbers get a little bit worse across the country,” said Jill Gonzalez, an analyst for WalletHub.

These numbers are examined on a weekly basis by WalletHub and are based-on statistics gathered by the Department of Labor.

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