State unemployment rates, March 2012

April 23, 2012

In March, 49 states and the District of Columbia registered unemployment rate decreases from a year earlier, while New York experienced an increase. The national jobless rate was little changed from February at 8.2 percent but was 0.7 percentage point lower than in March 2011.

[Chart data]
 

States with statistically significant unemployment rate changes from March 2011 to March 2012, seasonally adjusted

State	March 2012	March 2011
Alabama	7.3	9.3
California	11	11.9
Connecticut	7.7	9.1
Florida	9	10.7
Georgia	9	9.8
Michigan	8.5	10.5
Minnesota	5.8	6.6
Missouri	7.4	8.7
Nevada	12	13.6
Ohio	7.5	8.8
South Carolina	8.9	10.4
South Dakota	4.3	4.9
Tennessee	7.9	9.4
Texas	7	8.0
Utah	5.8	7.1
Vermont	4.8	5.8
Washington	8.3	9.4
Wisconsin	6.8	7.6

In March 2012, Alabama and Michigan registered the largest jobless rate decreases from March 2011 (-2.0 percentage points each). Sixteen additional states reported smaller but also statistically significant declines over the year. The remaining 32 states and the District of Columbia recorded unemployment rates that were not appreciably different from those of a year earlier.

These data are from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics programs. Data for the most recent month are preliminary and subject to revision. To learn more, see "Regional and State Employment and Unemployment — March 2012" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-12-0717.