Skip to footer

Unemployment rate falls in 45 states

Unemployment rate for January falls for nearly all states. Only New York sees an increase in its unemployment rate.

|
Larry Mayer/Billings Gazette/AP/File
In a time exposure photo, tractor-trailers leave streaks of light as they merge onto Highway 2 west of Williston, N.D., in January. North Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate among the states: 3.2 percent.
  • By Christopher S. Rugaber AP Economics Writer

| WASHINGTON

The unemployment rate fell in 45 U.S. states in January, a sign that nearly all of the country is benefiting from an improving economy and job market.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that only New York state reported a higher unemployment rate in January than the previous month. Unemployment rates were unchanged in four states.

That's better than December, when rates fell in 37 states, were unchanged in 10 and rose in three.

Nationwide, the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent in January from 8.5 percent in the previous month. Employers added 284,000 jobs, the second-highest total in six years.

Hiring has picked up as the economy has improved. Growth accelerated to a 3 percent annual pace in the final three months of last year. That's better than the 1.8 percent pace in the third quarter.

Nevada had the nation's highest unemployment rate in January, at 12.7 percent, down from 13 percent in the previous month. California and Rhode Island had the next-highest rates, each with 10.9 percent.

North Dakota reported the lowest jobless rate, at 3.2 percent, followed by Nebraska at 4 percent and South Dakota at 4.2 percent.

Last month, 37 states reported an increase in total jobs, while 13 states said they lost jobs. The figures are different than the unemployment rates because rates can fall even if a state doesn't add new jobs. Unemployed workers who give up on their job searches, for example, are no longer counted as unemployed, thereby reducing the rate.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Unemployment rate falls in 45 states
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0314/Unemployment-rate-falls-in-45-states
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe