In a bit of good news, relatively speaking, this week, new unemployment numbers are out and while they're still high, officials are calling it a positive improvement.

2.5 million jobs were added last month, which drops the United States unemployment rate from 14.7 to 13.3 percent in April. Encouraging signs, with a long way to go as a small glimmer of hope arises that the Coronvirus crisis might be bottoming out, from an economic and business standpoint, anyway. A caveat here is that the devastation on businesses and the public during and after the George Floyd death and subsequent protests were not factored in, as the latest report was compiled in mid-May. We may see another downturn in June based on those events, but for now, officials want to tout this latest news.

As for specific businesses showing a positive upswing, the Associated Press story published by KCRG points to the Cheesecake Factory reopening three-quarters of its 300 nationwide locations to, albeit, limited capacity and still holding at 75 percent of its earnings from this time last year. That's a surprising level given what's been a rough couple months for businesses.

Also take note that these are the U.S. numbers as a whole for the month of May. A new jobs report came out for Iowa this week, too. According to KCRG, Iowa Workforce Development says 6,920 new jobless claims were filed during the week of May 24-30. Continuing unemployment claims totaled 165,195, a decrease of 13,000 from their previous report.

$51,043,465.89 was the total amount paid out in Iowa unemployment during the latest reporting period.

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