Milwaukee County Unemployment at 11.5%

The latest data indicates that as of June, the unemployment rate in Milwaukee County was 11.5 percent, according to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD).

That number puts the county roughly in line with the national unemployment rate calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in June. The City of Milwaukee, however, had an unemployment rate of 12.8 percent based upon that data from June.

Both the city and county are well above the state’s 8.5 percent unemployment rate.

The county’s unemployment rate in May was 14.1 percent and the City of Milwaukee’s was 15.3 percent.

Last week the U.S. saw 1.4 million new claims for unemployment insurance. In Wisconsin there were 21,121 new claims in the past seven days.

Since the beginning of the pandemic there have been 53.1 million new claims for unemployment insurance across the country and nearly 800,000 in Wisconsin.

Last week there were 974,999 claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). The total was up slightly from the week prior.

All these numbers show that despite recent drops in the unemployment rate at the local, state and national level, claims on unemployment insurance continue to come in at unprecedented rates.