Here are the 10 states losing the most jobs since the pandemic

New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan have suffered the most job losses since the global health crisis started nearly over two years ago.

by Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech | July 8, 2022 | Jul. 08, 2022

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A preliminary analysis from the Brookings Institution shows that New York has lost the greatest number of non-farm jobs since the pandemic began.

The analysis used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and tracked all 50 states throughout the pandemic.

Pennsylvania and Michigan came in second and third for most jobs lost.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how and where Americans live with many choosing to move states to be closer to family, cheaper rent or better job prospects.

Migration to states like Texas, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina has boomed since March of 2020, according to U.S. Census data.

That shift in how the country’s population is spread out has taken an economic toll with some states still struggling to fully recover all the jobs lost during the pandemic.

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Many of the states that have suffered the greatest number of job losses since the virus reached American soil are blue states, or those where the majority tends to vote Democrat, with New York leading the way.

New York has lost 296,700 non-farm jobs since March of 2020, according to preliminary analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data from the Brookings Institution.

New York also ranked lower on Moody’s Analytics “back-to-normal” index scoring an 86.9 out of 100, the only other place that ranked lower was Washington D.C. which scored 83.

Moody’s has tracked the nation’s economic recovery since 2020 and crafted the index based on 13 metrics like employment levels, value of goods and services produced and retail sales.

Second place for most job losses since the pandemic goes to Pennsylvania, which is often seen as a red state but flipped blue during the 2020 presidential election.

The state has lost 118,300 non-farm jobs since the start of the pandemic, according to the Brookings Institution, just 13,500 more than third place holder, Michigan.

Here are the 10 states that have lost the most non-farm jobs since the pandemic began, according to Brookings: