St. Paul, MN (KROC-AM News) - Minnesota has reached another historic milestone concerning the coronavirus pandemic and a top state official stresses it’s not a good one.

Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development Commissioner Steve Grove was among the members of Governor Tim Walz’s cabinet who presented at today’s COVID-19 briefing. He reported that over 451,000 Minnesotans have now filed for unemployment benefits since the middle of last month. He says that number is over double the total number of applications processed by the agency during all of last year.

Grove says it also represents about 14-percent of Minnesota’s workforce. Grove cautioned that figure is not the same as the unemployment rate, which factors in a number of other employment statistics.

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