Updated federal guidance expands the number of cases where states don't have to recover overpaid COVID jobless benefits, so long as fraud wasn't involved.
Beside COVID concerns, what the high-risk markets also all have in common is that they are high-density, and would be prone to risk even without a pandemic.
Just three states have higher unemployment rates than New Jersey's 7.2%. The state has added jobs each month of 2021 but is down 248,600 from before pandemic.
Not only will employers soon pay higher payroll taxes, but now the state is paying interest to the federal government on the loan it has to pay jobless benefits.