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Economy

5 States With Unemployment Under 4%

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Even during a time of robust recovery, the national unemployment rate rarely drops below 5%. However, in a period in which unemployment in the United States is 5.8%, five states have rates under 4%.

The five states are Minnesota (3.9%), North Dakota (2.8%), Nebraska (3.4%), South Dakota (3.3%) and Utah (3.3%).

Even a year ago, these states had rates well below the national average.

One of the things the five states have in common is small populations. South Dakota and North Dakota are two of the three smallest states by population. Nebraska is 37th and Utah is 33rd. Only Minnesota is of any significant size based on population, 21st in the nation. Another thing the states have in common is their vast sizes. Minnesota is the 12th largest state base on square mileage. Utah is 13th, Nebraska is 16th, South Dakota is 17th and North Dakota is 19th.

Each of the states has businesses that are “recession proof” to some extent. Minnesota is the headquarters of well over a dozen of the largest companies in the United States. These include Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT), Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY), General Mills Inc. (NYSE: GIS) and Cargill.

South Dakota has benefited from government spending and agriculture. Nebraska has been helped by a similar economy. The shale industry dominates North Dakota’s economy. In Utah, petroleum production and mining are critical part of the state gross domestic product.

The lessons: be big geographically, small in population and rely on a small number of industries.

Notes: BLS methodology, unemployment by state and unemployment by region.

ALSO READ: 8 States With Unemployment Over 7%

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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