The news on Friday that Utah’s unemployment rate is at the lowest level since 2008 is remarkable by itself. Couple that with the fact that some cities in America have unemployment rates above 20%, and the news becomes absolutely amazing.
Utah’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.6% last month, which is the lowest since November of 2008. Additionally, job growth is sitting at 2.9% as the state added ore than 37,000 jobs last month.
That sits in stark contrast to a number of American cities, mostly in the West, with unemployment rates well north of that%. They include:
- Yuma, Arizona (23.8%)
- El Centro, California (21.6%)
- Yuba City, California (14.5%)
- Merced, California (14.3%)
- Hanford, California (13.1%)
- Visalia, California (13.4%)
Provo, Utah is one of the cities with extremely low unemployment, sitting at just 3%. Others with low joblessness include Midland, Texas (3.2%), Bismarck, North Dakota (2.6%) and Lincoln, Nebraska (2.9%).
According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data on metro areas for April, there are a number of other pockets of high unemployment. Among these are the old industrial cities of Illinois, south of Chicago. Unemployment in Decatur is 9.1%. In Danville it is 8.9%, and in Rockford, 9.2%.
Yet another pocket of high unemployment runs from Detroit along the corridor that used to be home to many of the nation’s largest car factories. These include Detroit at 7.9%, Flint at 7.8%, Bay City at 7.7% and Saginaw at 7.5%.
Read more: Unemployment Over 20% in Some Cities – 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/economy/2014/05/29/unemployment-over-20-in-some-cities/#ixzz35TtN7wvk
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