Change in unemployment by social vulnerability among United States counties with rapid increases in COVID-19 incidence-July 1-October 31, 2020

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the unemployment rate in the United States peaked at 14.8% in April 2020. We examined patterns in unemployment following this peak in counties with rapid increases in COVID-19 incidence. We used CDC aggregate county data to identify counties with rapid increases in COVID-19 incidence (rapid riser counties) during July 1-October 31, 2020. We used a linear regression model with fixed effect to calculate the change of unemployment rate difference in these counties, stratified by the county's social vulnerability (an indicator compiled by CDC) in the two months before the rapid riser index month compared to the index month plus one month after the index month. Among the 585 (19% of U.S. counties) rapid riser counties identified, the unemployment rate gap between the most and least socially vulnerable counties widened by 0.40 percentage point (p