March 03, 2009 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

2007-08 changes in State unemployment rates

Among the States, Rhode Island had the largest jump in its jobless rate (+2.6 percentage points) in 2008.

States with the largest increases in unemployment rates and U.S. increase in unemployment rate, 2007-08
[Chart data—TXT]

Florida and Nevada reported the next largest rate increases (+2.1 and +2.0 percentage points, respectively).

Twenty-one additional States and the District of Columbia recorded increases in their unemployment rates of at least 1.0 percentage point.

The annual average unemployment rate for the United States climbed by 1.2 percentage points over the year.

These data are from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program. To learn more, see "Regional and State Unemployment, 2008 Annual Averages," (PDF) (HTML) news release USDL 09-0186.

 

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