Data Drop: State and County-level Unemployment Rates

Data Drop: State and county-level unemployment rates

Stacker Data Drops offer data insights and visualizations that can be freely used by journalists for their own original coverage.

Data reporter Paxtyn Merten explored Bureau of Labor Statistics data to map state-level unemployment rates for January 2023. Data for the most recent month is preliminary, and BLS may revise it in future months. Unemployment rates are the percentage of the state's resident labor force that is unemployed, excluding those who are not actively seeking employment.

Charts are available for the national unemployment rate over time, up through February 2023. While U.S. unemployment has returned to pre-pandemic lows, the unemployment rate rose slightly in February to 3.6% compared to 3.4% in January. The largest employment losses over the month occurred in the information and transportation/warehousing sectors, which lost 25,000 jobs and 22,000 jobs over the month, respectively.

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Methodology

Stacker explored Bureau of Labor Statistics data to map state-level unemployment data. Data for the most recent month is preliminary, and BLS may revise estimates in future months. Unemployment rates track the percent of the nation or state's resident labor force that is unemployed, excluding residents who are not actively seeking employment.

January state unemployment takeaways:

Nevada had the highest unemployment rate at 5.5%.
North and South Dakota were tied for the lowest unemployment rate at 2.1%.
Washington, D.C.'s unemployment rate increased the most over the month, rising 0.2 percentage points. Seven other states saw unemployment increase slightly over the month.
21 states decreased their unemployment rates over the month.
Oregon's unemployment rate increased the most annually, rising 1 percentage point.
New Mexico's unemployment rate decreased the most annually, falling 1.9 percentage points.