VIRGINIA
Percent Unemployed Getting Benefits: 19% (sixth lowest)
Percent Average Weekly Wage Covered: 30.7% (15th lowest)
Unemployment rate: 4.9% (15th lowest)
Black Unemployment Rate (2013): 9.6%
Just 19% of out-of-work residents in Virginia received unemployment benefits in the first quarter of 2014.
MarketWatch says it’s likely many of the unemployed simply ran out of benefit eligibility. According to the Department of Labor, during that time the state’s exhaustion rate – a rough measure of how many workers have exhausted their unemployment benefits – was 48%. This was one of the highest rates in the nation.