Delaware
Unemployment claims in Delaware increased last week
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Initial filings for unemployment benefits in Delaware rose last week compared with the week prior, the U.S. Department of Labor said Jan. 15.
New jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, increased to 512 in the week ending Jan. 10, up from 390 the week before, the Labor Department said.
U.S. unemployment claims dropped to 198,000 last week, down 9,000 claims from 207,000 the week prior on a seasonally adjusted basis.
Tennessee saw the largest percentage increase in weekly claims, with claims jumping by 113.5%. New Hampshire, meanwhile, saw the largest percentage drop in new claims, with claims dropping by 31.7%.
USA TODAY Co. is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly unemployment insurance claims report.
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Delaware looks prosperous on paper. Our GDP per capita ranks near the top nationally. But from 2000 to 2024, Delaware’s real GDP per capita grew just 1% — dead last in America. The national average was 37%. North Dakota grew 104%. Virginia grew 33%. North Carolina grew 26%.
That gap is the story. Delaware has been living off an economy it inherited while failing to build the workforce it needs for the future.
This is not just a school problem. It is an economic problem, a taxpayer problem and a leadership problem.
Delaware’s 2024 labor-force participation rate was 59.6%, the lowest since recordkeeping began in 1976. The state says it has more open jobs than jobseekers. In a state where government is the largest employer, headline numbers can disguise a weaker private-sector engine. In plain English: Delaware does not have enough workers with the skills employers need.
Delaware is failing our students
That failure starts early.
Only 26% of Delaware fourth graders read proficiently. As many as 45% score below basic. Eighth-grade reading scores hit a 27-year low in 2024. Only 34% of students in grades 3 through 8 are proficient in math.
When children do not learn to read, the bill does not disappear — it compounds. Delaware now has 54,000 prime-age adults who have left the labor force. State research estimates that costs us roughly $450 million a year in lost earnings, productivity and tax revenue. Every Delawarean pays twice: once when schools under-deliver, again when the consequences show up in corrections, homelessness, emergency healthcare, thinner tax base — and the dignity of a job.
Delaware spends about $20,577 per public school student — more than Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Let us stop pretending this is mainly a funding problem. It is a performance problem. Performance problems do not get fixed by writing larger checks to systems that are not held accountable.
To his credit, Gov. Matt Meyer has acknowledged the crisis. He declared a literacy emergency, launched the Delaware Early Literacy Plan, and backed new reading funding. Those are real steps. But Delaware has seen plans before, and the state’s own education leadership concedes that scores remain essentially flat. A one-point bump is not a turnaround. It is a rounding error.
Delaware does not lack plans. It lacks consequences.
Mississippi and Louisiana have shown the country what serious reform looks like. Mississippi climbed from 49th in fourth-grade reading in 2013 to the top 10 by 2024 — while spending less per student than Delaware. Louisiana went from last in 2019 to 16th in five years, and is the only state to fully recover from pandemic learning loss and surpass pre-pandemic scores. They aligned teacher training to the science of reading, adopted strong instructional materials, built transparent accountability and stopped pretending it was compassion to promote children who could not read.
The lesson is not about better messaging. It is about better systems, better measurement, the political will to keep going when resistance starts and more engaged business leaders.
Delaware’s stated goal is to raise third-grade reading proficiency from 38% to 53% by 2028. Fine. Who owns that number? Who is responsible for hitting it? What happens if they miss?
A target without a consequence is not accountability. It is public relations.
Will Delaware leaders commit to helping our children?
So here is a direct question for every governor, every legislator and every elected official whose name appears on a ballot: Will you stake your career on this? Will you commit, publicly and on the record, to being judged by whether Delaware’s children are measurably better off in eight years?
If that sounds like too much, consider what eight years means for a child. A third grader today who cannot read on grade level will be entering eleventh grade in 2033 — carrying the same deficit, the same narrowed future the data already predicts. Eight years is not an abstraction. It is the entire arc of a young person’s formative education.
Real accountability means public goals, quarterly reporting, named decision-makers and consequences for failure. It means a governor and legislature willing to say: here is the number, here is who owns it, here is how we will report it, here is what happens if we fail.
Mississippi was the poorest state in America. It decided that was not an excuse. Delaware is wealthier, smaller and easier to govern. We have even less excuse.
The excuses are exhausted. Delaware deserves better.
Ben duPont is a longtime Delawarean, a venture capitalist and a philanthropist. State Sen. Darius Brown represents the Second Senate District, which includes New Castle, Wilmington and Edgemoor.
A massive crane at a construction site along I-295 in New Castle County, Delaware, tipped backward.
SkyForce10 was over the scene on Wednesday, April 29, where a massive crane could be seen leaning backward with all its wheels in the air:
It is unclear at this time if anyone was injured and how the crane tipped backward.
FOLCROFT, Pa. (WPVI) — The FBI is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the disappearance of a Delaware County, Pennsylvania man.
Isiah Jenifer, 29, has been missing since last summer.
Jenifer’s sister reported him missing to police on Aug. 28 after she said she had been unable to reach him and learned that no one else had heard from him.
“It’s not like my brother not to be at my house, and we received a few phone calls that nobody had heard or talked to him, and I checked his location – his location wouldn’t update,” Kayla Jenifer said.
Police said Isiah Jenifer was last seen on the 1500 block of Chester Pike in Folcroft. His family said that location was a Wawa.
According to Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse, investigators were able to track Jenifer’s phone after he disappeared.
“We were able to track his phone down to the city of Chester. That’s the last time his whereabouts were known,” Rouse said.
Sources said a car Jenifer was believed to have been in was later found in Chester, with blood matching his DNA discovered under one of the seats.
Authorities said the investigation stalled after that discovery, and no arrests have been made in the case.
Rouse said the FBI’s involvement and reward offer reflect the urgency of the investigation.
“It’s all hands on deck when someone is missing, and I appreciate our federal partners offering us this reward. We want help,” he said.
Jenifer’s family said the past eight months have been filled with uncertainty as they wait for answers. They also noted that Jenifer was on parole for a drug-related crime in 2019 and said it was unlike him to miss reporting to his parole officer.
His sister, Rhea Jenifer, emphasized that regardless of his past, he remains deeply loved.
“No matter what he was then, he was someone that we loved. He was a little brother. He was a big brother. He was an uncle, he was a son, he was a nephew,” she said.
Rouse said investigators are hoping someone with information will come forward, whether to help reunite Jenifer with his family or to provide them with closure.
“We’re hoping for a happy ending to this. And obviously if the happy ending isn’t available, we’re hoping to bring justice to his family,” he said.
The FBI said Jenifer has ties to multiple communities. In addition to Folcroft and Chester, he has connections in Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware.
Investigators said they are hopeful someone, somewhere, can help bring him home.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the FBI’s Philadelphia Field Office at (215) 418-4000 or at tips.fbi.gov.
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