WalletHub, a respected credit-review and financial planning organization based in Washington, D.C., is practically championing Pennsylvania’s unemployment recovery rate. However, there’s little to be proud of.

WalletHub recently touted the fact that Pennsylvania ranks in the top 10 states at getting workers off of unemployment and back to work.

The organization said there are 10 million Americans unemployed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time of its report, there were 712,000 new unemployment claims nationwide, which is a lot fewer than the 6.9 million during the peak of the pandemic (a 90% reduction).

But what the report fails to note is the unemployment numbers drop when workers throw up their hands and give up looking for work. Some jobs that have been eliminated are never coming back. Some unemployment recipients have stopped filing or claims have simply run out.

One thing WalletHub got right: Coronavirus has wiped out all the job gains since the Great Recession.

In its report, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across three metrics based on changes in unemployment claims. Numbers are from the U.S. Department of Labor.

For Pennsylvania, these were the numbers for unemployment claims compared to 2019: 24,144 the week of Feb. 15, 2021 vs. 12,923 the week of Feb. 18, 2019. Compared to other states, WalletHub said Pennsylvania had the 10th quickest recovery in the United States in that time frame.

Compared to the start of 2020: There were 24,144 claims the week of Feb. 15, 2021 vs. 27,298 the week of Jan. 1, 2020. This is the fifth quickest recovery in the United States among states.

Comparing the change in unemployment claims since the start of the COVID-19 job crisis vs. the previous year: 3,172,517 between the week of March 16, 2020 and the week of Feb. 15, 2021 vs. 691,447 between the week of March 18, 2019 and the week of Feb. 17, 2020. Pennsylvania had the seventh quickest recovery in the nation, according to WalletHub.

By the way, Ohio has the lowest recovery of all states in the latest week of the report vs. the start of 2020.

Despite the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic still has a strong grip on the nation, new unemployment claims decreased week-over-week on Feb. 15 and were 89% below the peak during the COVID-19 pandemic, notes WalletHub.

You have to take some reports with a critical eye. Nowhere does WalletHub explain the fact that if you have given up looking for work, what does that make you? What statistic do you represent? Not fully employed? Underemployed?

Be wary of the optimistic reports you see when jobs continue to be eliminated as we slowly pull ourselves free of this job-killing pandemic.

— AA