When the COVID Pandemic first hit, Tennessee recorded a record number of new unemployment claims in a very short period of time. Data from the Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development shows that 762,389 new unemployment claims were filed between March 14, 2020 and July 25, 2020.

While over 762,000 residents filed for unemployment between March 14th and July 25th of last year, not all of them were approved to actually receive unemployment benefits.

From March 14th through the 20th, a total of 16,342 people were approved and receiving unemployment funds. By May 9th, that number had sky-rocketed to 325,095 residents receiving unemployment checks.

Since March of last year, the numbers of new unemployment claims tied to the Pandemic being filed has gone down.

Today (June 17, 2021), WGNS confirmed that newly filed unemployment claims tied to the Pandemic have remained somewhat stagnant, when compared to the months in 2020. In fact, over the past 8-weeks in Tennessee, an average of 7,353 new unemployment claims have been filed.

When looking at the unemployment payments that continue to be paid over the past 8-weeks, there has been an average of 50,407 residents receiving benefits weekly. That is a vast difference from the average of 232,025 payments being made weekly last year between March 14th and July 25th of 2020.

Rutherford County Numbers

Unemployment data shows that Rutherford County started the Pandemic with 266 jobless benefits being paid that were tied to COVID-19. Today, only 2,276 Rutherford County residents are receiving unemployment payments.

In contrast, the number of Rutherford Countians receiving unemployment benefits today is much lower when compared the numbers recorded in 2020. For example, 22,233 Rutherford County residents received an unemployment check the week of April 25th to May 2nd in 2020. The number climbed to 23-thousand the following week in 2020.  

Entire State of Tennessee

From March 15, 2020 to June 12, 2021, there have been a little over 1.2-million new unemployment claims tied to the Pandemic filed in the Volunteer State.