U.S. State Unemployment Rates Are Lower but Vary Widely

The overall U.S. unemployment rate continued to reach new lows last month. The 5.8% rate was a six-year low and down from 10.0% at its late-2009 peak. Variation in the level amongst individual states continues, but a declining trend is evident most everywhere. Georgia's rebounding unemployment rate is the country's highest at 7.7%, but that remained below the 10.4% high in early-2010. Nevada's rate at 7.1% was down from a peak of 13.9% in 2010. The country's largest states also realized great improvement in labor market conditions. California's comparatively high 7.3% jobless rate was sharply below the 2010 peak of 12.3%. In Tennessee, last month's 7.1% rate was up from the recent 6.3% low, but still compared favorably to the 2009 high of 11.0%. New York's unemployment rate of 6.0% was a recovery low and compared to the 2009 peak of 8.9%.The jobless rate in Texas was down to 5.1% from its 2010 high of 8.3%.

Amongst mid-sized states, Michigan's jobless rate fell to 7.1% after hovering near 7.5% this spring and summer. That was half the 14.2% peak in 2009. Florida's 6.0% rate of joblessness was a new low and compared to 11.4% at the 2009 peak. In Virginia, the jobless rate returned to 5.3% last month after backing up to 5.5%. It still was, however, below the 7.4% peak reached late in 2009. Amongst smaller states, Nebraska's 3.4% unemployment rate was a new low, down from the 4.9% 2009 high while Connecticut saw its rate move straight downward to 6.4% from a 9.5% high. North Dakota's rate at 2.8% was up versus its low, but still down versus the 2009 high of 4.2%. Nebraska's rate fell to a new low of 3.4% versus the 4.9% peak.

The unemployment rate figures in individual metropolitan areas continued, in most circumstances, to differ widely from the state numbers. Florida's 6.0% unemployment rate was just below the 6.5% rate in the Miami metro area, although it was roughly half the 2010 figure. Michigan's 7.1% unemployment rate also was under the 8.3% figure around Detroit. In 2009 it reached 16.0%. New York state's 6.0% unemployment rate was just below the sharply reduced 6.4% in New York City while California's 7.3% rate was under the 8.0% around Los Angeles. Also, Ohio's 5.3% rate was well below Cleveland's of 6.4%. Working the other way, the Illinois unemployment rate of 6.6% was above the sharply reduced 6.3% around Chicago. Finally, Washington state's 6.0% jobless rate exceeded Seattle's 4.8%.

State unemployment figures are available in Haver's EMPLR database.