State employment-population ratio declines, 2010

In 2010, 32 states and the District of Columbia registered statistically significant deterioration in their employment-population ratios—the proportion of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years of age and over with a job.

[Chart data]

Four states reported over-the-year declines of 2.0 percentage points or more: Colorado (−2.4 points), Utah (−2.3 points), Nevada (−2.2 points), and Delaware (−2.1 points).

Twelve other states and the District of Columbia recorded decreases in their employment-population ratios from 2009 to 2010 ranging from −1.0 to −1.9 percentage points.

Nine states registered the lowest employment-population ratios in their series in 2010: California, 56.3 percent; Colorado, 62.8 percent; Delaware, 56.2 percent; Georgia, 57.0 percent; Hawaii, 59.4 percent; Kentucky, 55.6 percent; Nevada, 57.0 percent; North Carolina, 56.1 percent; and South Carolina, 54.5 percent. West Virginia again reported the lowest employment-population ratio among the states, 48.8 percent, which it has done for 35 consecutive years.

These data are from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program. For more information, see "Regional and State Unemployment — 2010 Annual Averages" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-11-0239.