Unemployment Still High in Several Poor States

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 5:29PM EST · Published Sep 24, 6:15AM EDT

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Unemployment Still High in Several Poor States — © Thinkstock

The unemployment rate dropped to 3.9% in August, as the economy added 201,000 jobs. The continues a trend of labor improvement that goes back to 10% levels during the Great Recession. However, several states continue to have a jobless rate higher than the national average, and most of these states are poor.

The jobless rate was at or over 5% last month in three states: Alaska at 6.7%, Louisiana at 5.0% and West Virginia at 5.3%. The rate was 5.6% in the District of Columbia. Only marginally better, the jobless rate was 4.8% in Mississippi.

Alaska ranks in fourth place among states for highest annual household income at $67,825. However, the state’s residents get money from the Permanent Fund Dividend created so that residents can share in oil industry profits. This supplements income in a way not available to residents of any other state.

Mississippi ranks rock bottom among states based on median household income at $36,919. Louisiana ranks 44 at $41,734. West Virginia ranks 48th at $38,432.

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Among the other observations in the State Employment and Unemployment Summary for August:

Unemployment rates were lower in August in 13 states, higher in 3 states, and stable in 34 states and the District of Columbia, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Eleven states had jobless rate decreases from a year earlier and 39 states and
the District had little or no change. The national unemployment rate was unchanged from July at 3.9 percent but was 0.5 percentage point lower than in August 2017.

Nonfarm payroll employment increased in 4 states in August 2018 and was essentially unchanged in 46 states and the District of Columbia. Over the year, 35 states added nonfarm payroll jobs and 15 states and the District were essentially unchanged.

Hawaii had the lowest unemployment rate in August, 2.1 percent. The rates in Idaho (2.8 percent), Oregon (3.8 percent), South Carolina (3.4 percent), and Washington (4.5 percent) set new series lows. (All state series begin in 1976.) Alaska had the highest jobless rate, 6.7 percent. In total, 15 states had unemployment rates lower than the U.S. figure of 3.9 percent, 9 states and the District of Columbia had higher rates, and 26 states had rates that were not appreciably different from that of the nation.

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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.