The chart above shows the unemployment rate in each US region as of December 2018. The South has the lowest unemployment rate.
Findings
- The difference between the region with the lowest unemployment rate, the South, and the region with the highest, the West, is 0.49 percentage points.
- The South has 0.88 times - or nearly nine-tenths - the unemployment rate that the West does.
- The Northeast only has one state with a higher unemployment rate than the West's, and the Midwest only two.
- The Northeast and the West each have only four states with unemployment rates lower that the South's.
Caveats
- Data is from December 2018.
- All figures are rounded to the nearest hundredth.
- The Southern US consists of Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia.
- The Midwestern US consists of Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
- The Northeastern US consists of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
- The Western US consists of California, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Hawaii, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming.
Details
Twenty-five states have an unemployment rate lower than that of the South; four each from the Northeast and the West, eight from the South, and nine from the Midwest.
Thirteen states have an unemployment rate higher than that of the West; one from the Northeast, two from the Midwest, four from the South, and six from the West.
Sources
Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2019. "State Employment and Unemployment (Monthly) News Release." Accessed February 6, 2019. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/laus_01182019.htm.