14 states hit record-low unemployment

thehill.com ^ | 04/23/18 11:21 AM EDT | By Reid Wilson

[Red Badger]

Fourteen states have set new records for low unemployment rates in the last year, nearly a decade after the recession put millions of Americans out of work.

The states hitting new unemployment lows run the ideological gamut, from conservative Texas to liberal California, suggesting a recovery stronger than any particular political persuasion.

In March, eight states saw new record lows, including Hawaii (2.1 percent), Idaho (2.9 percent), Kentucky (4 percent ), Maine (2.7 percent), Mississippi (4.5 percent), Oregon (4.1 percent) and Wisconsin (2.9 percent).

California also set a new record last month. The Golden State’s unemployment rate stands at 4.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That’s the lowest rate recorded since BLS began keeping track of state-level unemployment figures in 1976, and it’s a third of the 12.3 percent unemployment rate California notched at the height of the recession in December 2010.

Colorado’s unemployment rate is just 2.6 percent, among the lowest in the nation, and a third of the 8.9 percent peak it hit in 2010.

In Alabama, just 3.7 percent of workers are unemployed. Arkansas reached a 3.6 percent unemployment rate last May, its lowest rate ever.

North Dakota set its own record last year. Texas hit a 3.9 percent unemployment rate in November, after peaking at 8.3 percent during the height of the recession. Tennessee fell to the lowest unemployment rate it has ever measured, 3.3 percent, in January.

Hawaii’s unemployment rate is the lowest in the nation, BLS said. Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Wisconsin all have unemployment rates lower than 3 percent.

Such a tight job market means businesses are competing for workers, rather than workers competing for scarce jobs. That has some economists combing through data in search of evidence of rising wages, which have been largely stagnant since the recession.

Wages have risen only slowly in recent months. The average hourly earnings of nonfarm employees stood at $26.82 in March, up from $26.11 at the same time last year.

Alaska has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, at 7.3 percent, as low commodity prices challenge a state that performed relatively well during the recession. But Alaska’s unemployment rate has historically been higher than the national average; the lowest rate the state has ever recorded, in June 2007, was 6.3 percent, markedly higher than the 4.6 percent national unemployment rate at the time.

The District of Columbia and New Mexico both had unemployment rates of 5.6 percent last month, while West Virginia’s rate stood at 5.4 percent.

[proxy_user]

It only counts those who are looking for work. There are many mothers taking care of children, high-school students, college students, etc who are not looking for work right now.

[RipSawyer]

It certainly cannot be a true rate. I am old enough to remember when the true unemployment rate in my area was five percent or below, there were jobs everywhere,I could get a job any day that would pay enough to actually be worth working and with no college degree. New college graduates were starting out at what would be equal to a hundred grand a year or more now if a true inflation adjustment were used.

[aimhigh]

Yet Oregon’s homelessness is still high.

[rlmorel]

Bottom line, economically things are better. You can see it, and just as important, you can feel it.

I just hate government statistics. I never trust them, but things are better, no doubt.

For years, I have said that we need to get someone in the White House who isn’t a professional politician, someone who has worked in industry and understands how to meet a payroll and the vagaries of the ins and outs of the business world.

Trump fits that bill, and it shows. He is running the economy like a professional, which is what he is.