Friday Aug 19th, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their July 2011 regional and state unemployment rates. With a 0% month over month rate change at 8%, New York ranks 23rd place for state unemployment rates. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania rank just above NY with 7.8% unemployment rates for both states. Delaware and W. Virginia ranked just below NY with 8.1% rates. North Dakota and Nebraska are ranked number one and two with unemployment rates of 3.3% and 4.1% respectively.
At the bottom of the rankings are Nevada and California at 12.9% and 12% respectively. The July national unemployment is 9.1%, down from 9.2% in June.
The seasonally adjusted month over month 0% change of unemployment rate ranks NY in a tied 10th place with 12 other states. Of those 12 other states, only Iowa, Massachusetts, and South Dakota have lower unemployment rates than NY.
On a historical basis (data beginning in 1976), the highest recorded rate for the NY unemployment rate is 10.3% from August to November 1976. The lowest recorded rate is 4.0% in April 1988. NY last reached an 8.0% unemployment rate in March of this year.
In recent years the NY unemployment rate bottomed at 4.3% between November 2006 and March of 2007 and peaked at 8.9% from September 2009 to January of 2010. Since peaking, the rate did reach a low of 7.8% in May of this year and is similar to the experience of several other states in recent months where the unemployment rates are moving sideways.
On a year over year basis, NY’s unemployment rate is 0.5% lower than July 2010 and is tied for 20th place with Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas and Nebraska. Arizona is the only one of the four states with a higher unemployment rate than NY with 9.4%.
Other states (including the District of Columbia) with large month over month increases from June to July included: DC from 10.4% to 10.8%, Michigan from 10.5% to 10.9%, Minnesota from 6.8% to 7.2%, South Carolina from 10.5% to 10.9% and Nevada with a 0.5% increase from 12.4% to 12.9%.
Nine states experienced a reduction of their unemployment rates in July ranging from -0.1% to -0.4%. West Virginia had the largest reduction of -0.4% from 8.5% to 8.1%. Louisiana ranked second in July’s reduction of unemployment of -0.2% from 7.8% to 7.6%. 28 states and the District of Columbia increased their unemployment rates from 0.1% to 0.5% and the unemployment rate of 13 states remained unchanged.
Click here for the July 2011 state rankings of unemployment rates.
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