Editor's Note: This report is based on survey data from March 2024 that was published in April 2024. This is the most recent data available. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)
The national unemployment rate average fell by one-tenth of a point last month, as US employers added more than 300 thousand new jobs.
Only 6 states recorded a statistically meaningful reduction in unemployment rate, however, led by Arizona at minus 0.3%.
Florida was the only state to register an increase in unemployment last month, while the remaining 43 states and Washington DC saw no meaningful change in their month-to-month unemployment figures.
Similarly, only 5 states saw a net increase in jobs over the month, led by Virginia which added almost 17 thousand new entries to in-state payrolls, while the remaining 45 states and DC essentially held steady on net.
There are 5 states plus Washington DC that have unemployment rates above the US national average, down from 6 such states last month plus DC, while 24 states boast unemployment rates below the national average.
Below is the breakdown of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) market employment summary for April 2024.
California posted the highest unemployment rate for the second month in a row, holding steady at 5.3%, followed by Washington DC which ticked up a tenth of a point to 5.2% and swapping places with Nevada who ticked down a tenth of a point to 5.1%.
Rounding out the only other states with unemployment rates higher than the US average are Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington state - which each came in at 3.8% unemployment last month.
Florida, which saw its unemployment rate go up by one-tenth of a point, was the only state to record a statistically significant increase in unemployment last month.
Over the past 12 months, 29 states have recorded meaningful increases in unemployment, led by Rhode Island at plus 1.3%, followed by Connecticut at plus 1.1%, which were the only states that saw their unemployment rates increase by 1% or more over the year.
For the third straight month, North Dakota and South Dakota recorded the lowest unemployment rates among the states, both holding steady over the month at 2.0% and 2.1%, respectively.
Vermont was next on the list at 2.2% unemployment, followed by Maryland and Nebraska at 2.5% each.
Of the 6 states that recorded a net drop in unemployment rate last month, all but Arizona at minus 0.3% recorded a reduction of just one-tenth of a point. Those states are Maine, Montana, New York, Vermont, and Virginia.
Massachusetts saw its unemployment rate decrease by one-tenth of a percent over the course of the last 12 months, and it was in fact the only state to record a net decrease in unemployment over that time frame.
No states saw statistically significant job losses last month.
5 states in total saw the total number of jobs being worked in their states increase last month.
As a percentage, Arkansas and Kentucky saw the largest job gains at plus half a percentage point each, while Kansas and Virginia both registered 0.4% increases, rounded out by the 0.3% increase in Georgia.
Looking at the raw number of jobs added, however, Virginia had the biggest month, growing their in-state payrolls by 16,500. For context, that’s 10 thousand more jobs over the month than what Arkansas added.
Over the last 12 months, Idaho has seen the largest jobs gain in terms of percentage, with a 3.7% increase in payroll entries over the past year. Nevada isn’t far behind with a 3.4% increase over the same time period.
On the one hand, annualized inflation of 3.5% - as was recorded last month - is lower than inflation has been in all but 6 months out of the past 3 years.
On the other hand, inflation has ticked upward (albeit slightly) now 3 out of the last 4 months.
The latter trend is what Fed head Jerome Powell is pointing to while signaling that they will likely be delaying the planned interest rate decreases until 2025.
Perhaps even more concerning, Powell indicated that the Fed’s analysis shows that the cause of the lingering inflation may be linked to the increasing difficulty of insuring an economy that is being subjected to increasingly volatile forces, particularly with regard to natural disasters and weather related events.
We will dive further into the new outlook on how uninsurability may be driving inflation in future pieces and what it means, but suffice it to say for now, given the potential scope of the problem that Powell believes has prevented inflation from being tamped out thus far, plans for lower interest rates may as well be on hold indefinitely.
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