U.S. Cities With The Highest And Lowest Unemployment Rates

(AP) -- Unemployment rates fell in more than three-quarters of the nation's 372 largest metro areas in February, a sign that recent hiring gains have been widespread and not limited to a few healthy regions.

Below are the cities with the highest and lowest unemployment rates. Figures are in percentages.

Best and Worst Metro areas

Highest unemployment rates Feb. 2011

1. El Centro, Calif. 26.9
2. Yuma, Ariz. 21.5
3. Merced, Calif. 21.3
4. Yuba City, Calif. 21.3
5. Fresno, Calif. 18.2
6. Modesto, Calif. 18.1
7. Visalia-Porterville, Calif. 18.1
8. Hanford-Corcoran, Calif. 18.0
9. Stockton, Calif. 17.6
10. Ocean City, N.J. 17.0

Lowest unemployment rates Feb. 2011

1. Lincoln, Neb. 4.2
2. Bismarck, N.D. 4.6
3. Ames, Iowa 4.7
4. Iowa City, Iowa 4.7
5. Fargo, N.D. 4.7
6. Burlington, Vt. 4.8
7. Midland, Texas 4.8
8. Honolulu, Hawaii 5.2
9. Portsmouth, N.H. 5.2
10. Charlottesville, Va. 5.3

Comments

[Malcolm Hensley]

08:28 PM on 04/11/2011

California in 2000 was the 5th largest economy in the world by 2008 we had dropped down to 8th!

We have 8 of the 10 top cities in unemployment.

See California is still leading the nation!
The question is where?

I forget are we a blue state or a red state?

[graffitijoe]

03:04 PM on 04/09/2011

All blue states except Yuma, AZ and that's a stones throw(literally) border town. No surprise, CA is pushing jobs out of the state especially now that Brown is back.

[graffitijoe]

03:06 PM on 04/09/2011

...and when I say border town - I mean with CA to it's detriment not Mexico.

[tjconkster]

11:26 AM on 04/09/2011

Its bad all over...my department had two positions open up....we had 44 applicants....of those..20 were eliminated off the top....those pesky criminal records are frowned upon in Law Enforcement...of the remaining 24...4 were asked back for a second interview....and RepubliCorp/Republican tea Party politicians and their minions say its easy to get a job....I'd like to see them try....

[dayzee10]

02:05 PM on 04/08/2011

Unemployed Californians there are plenty of jobs in texas, florida,missisippi,louisiana,georgia, kentucky,alabama,arizona,oklahoma,nebraska,utah you know all those red states.

[stox1994]

05:43 PM on 04/08/2011

Where are the jobs in Texas? Been out of work over 2 years!

[99er2049er]

12:09 AM on 04/09/2011

People are out of work everywhere in this country. You can move to another state and end up out of work their as well. The grass always seems greener on the other side.

I have had people suggest moving to another state, but I won't leave my girlfriend and family behind just to get a job that will likely end up firing me within 6 months.

[tjconkster]

11:27 AM on 04/09/2011

Remember only YOU can prevent a tro!! from getting paid......don't rise to their bait....

And yes I feel for you....I wish you well in your search....

[pineappaloupe]

03:16 AM on 04/09/2011

I have no desire to live in any of those states. Except for Utah, if i could find refuge away from mormons. California is amazing.

[dayzee10]

06:36 AM on 04/09/2011

That 's the point. Better to be poor in california than be working poor in those godforsaken retealibanbaggerican states

[JustinP213]

09:50 AM on 04/08/2011

Is anyone shocked that 8 of the 10 towns are in California?? I'm not.

[Wendy Davis]

11:20 AM on 04/08/2011

I live in one of them.  Very unsettling.  But there are a lot of legal immigrants here who are laborers and now unemployed.  When you add the non-working illegal immigrants the number just gets higher.  Businesses are closing and tax revenue is crashing - My combined water/sewage/garbage bill is now 98.00 a month (was 56.00 a few years ago) due to empty homes.  Taxes (on purchases) are also high at 9% and in one county 9.5% here.  The very poor (assistance with food, shelter, healcare) and the very rich can survive in California.  The rest of us - it's a nightmare.

[lulubelle1956]

07:29 AM on 04/08/2011

Where are the jobs Mr. Boehner, GOP and TP'rs?

[daultman463]

12:04 PM on 04/08/2011

The unemployment rate has dropped every month since Mr. Boehner took over the house my friend.

[PopsinAZ]

01:53 PM on 04/08/2011

Unemployment numbers (rates) are very misleading. Although numbers of new applicants for unemployment benefits are down, the totals are also down primarily because many of the unemployed have exceeded their periods of benefits eligibility and therefore dropped off the roles.
Neither Obama, Democrats, stimulus legislation, nor a GOP majority in the House have increased the employment rates.
Pointing fingers at either political party does not help.

[stox1994]

05:46 PM on 04/08/2011

Do you think it is because 35,000 people stop getting UI? Add the 99ers in and it will be over 20% unemployment.

[pineappaloupe]

03:21 AM on 04/09/2011

Attribute anything positive to the party you prefer, attribute anything negative to the party you don't prefer. Obama is responsible for the bad economy, not Bush. Unemployment supposedly got better when the GOP took over the House, it had nothing to do with the time scale of economic fluctuation. Obama is increasing the deficit because he wants to. None of the deficit increase it related to tax breaks under Bush, or the funding needed to continue military activity.
That reality is convenient...

[lulubelle1956]

08:48 AM on 04/09/2011

I fear you are eating too many pineapples and cantaloupes--otherwise, it appears you are incapable of googling "jobs lost under George W. Bush" and finding the graphs published even by conservative papers, which show jobs lost under him and gained under Obama (who is trying to replace the jobs that Bush/GOP outsourced for 8 years).

I guess all that fruit has also rendered you incapable of googling "growth of deficit under George W. Bush" which would show you who created the deficit this country is now struggling to reduce.

The reality is that googling or doing any independent research is inconvenient for you!

[99er2049er]

12:31 PM on 04/09/2011

I can't believe someone can try to spin that Obama is responsible for the bad economy and not Bush. This is a flat out lie and not even plausible in any reality you are living in.

It is a clear and proven fact when Obama took office, there was a recession, left for him by Bush. Bush also left him with the Iraq war and a host of other problems. The economy is getting better under Obama. But also remember, it takes several years to climb out of a recession, including replacing the jobs. And this is not an ordinary recession, this is a major recession, so it will take longer than a few years.

Please don't make statements that are not even remotely believable. I know Fox News probably states claims like this enough to the point where their viewers believe them, but come on, this is not Fox News, this is Huffington Post!

[dtairtime]

12:50 AM on 04/08/2011

Hmm - the state with with highest level of imported labor (immigration) also has the cities with the highest level of unemployment.

Who'd a thought labor was supply/demand effected like every other commodity?

[OMEGA MAN]

08:43 AM on 04/08/2011

Interesting chart from the Bureau Of Labor Statistics.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2009/mar/wk5/art02.htm

[99er2049er]

12:16 AM on 04/08/2011

Hey, proud to be from California, where we own 8 out of 10 of the highest unemployment rates in the country. And the trolls wonder why there are millions of 99ers out there without jobs? Over 300,000 unemployed who no longer receive benefits in California alone.

[katooom]

07:53 PM on 04/07/2011

spent the last several weeks in upper state SC. things are booming pretty well there. Lots of manufacturing supporting BMW.

[Quitcherbichin]

07:00 PM on 04/07/2011

WOW! 8 of ten of the worst places in the country for employment are in California. Why am I not surprised. This is what happens when liberalism is left to its own devices and runs amuck.

[PJ M]

07:09 PM on 04/07/2011

Thanks for proving the internet has done nothing to raise people's intelligence ....

[IndependentMeans]

09:23 PM on 04/07/2011

:0)

[99er2049er]

12:18 AM on 04/08/2011

You knew a troll would misconstrue data, afterall, that is how their brains work.

[verycold]

07:09 PM on 04/07/2011

What is so upsetting about CA is that they have EVERYTHING.  They have good weather, diverse economy, coastal access, access to shipping, etc.  I can't just blame those in power.  Politicians only do what they know they have support for.  So the elected officials over promised, under taxed for the benefits provided, to stay in office.  It is all about votes.  Even now with the CA economy in such a mess, any suggestions of further spending cuts gets no support.  So it is like the taxpayer is expecting the politicians to get money out of thin air. 

The last financial adviser for the government said a week ago that it will NOT be enough to increase employee contributions for their pension and healthcare.  There isn't enough potential dues that can fund what was promised.  Those pensions will need to get clipped by quite a bit.  The problem is those are legal contracts and they can't clip and so more and more services get reduced to just pay into those pension funds.  This is what is mean by a structural failure.

[IndependentMeans]

09:20 PM on 04/07/2011

Actually, Gov. Brown has tried to get a tax increase on the ballot and the Republican Legislature here refuses to even let us vote on it. It is that kind of attitude that ticks me off.

[Quitcherbichin]

10:29 PM on 04/07/2011

"So it is like the taxpayer is expecting the politician­s to get money out of thin air."

Sounds remarkably like the mindset of the Democrat party. The country has been spending more than it takes in for years...all of a sudden a conservative says "Hey we can't continue to do it this way or we will go bankrupt", and the answer from the Demos is..."Oh yes we can". A reckoning is coming...get ready for it.

[Liberalperson]

05:19 PM on 04/07/2011

Illegal and Legal immigration are destroying this country. First, we have millions upon millions of illegals every year sneaking into the country, they make decent wages (do not believe that they make minimum wage), get free healthcare, have as many anchor babies as possible, and refuse to learn English but instead make us learn Spanish. Then, we have millions upon millions of Legal immigrants from India, China, and Korea coming here because these corrupt corporations claim that they need those "high tech" workers. We, the US citizen should be those "high tech" workers but they get tax breaks for hiring immigrants instead. So then those Legal immigrants gain citizenship in 2 years and bring over their entire family (aunts, Grandparents). Chain migration. That is why we can't get employment! The US citizen is being discriminated against for being a US citizen. Stand up and speak out! I do. Most Democrats that I know oppose illegal immigration, oppose comprehensive immigration reform (amnesty). Most! It is only the far left that is too scared to say anything. Besides, the far left hate themselves so why would they want to stand up for their country?

[RedRat]

06:25 PM on 04/07/2011

Your view is simplistic at the extreme. The reason that we have no jobs is that the good paying jobs have been shipped overseas for the past two decades. That is going to be the reason for only a very slow recovery. The jobs just aren't there anymore. We have become a service sector economy.

What does that mean: burger flipping, lawn mowing, shoe shining if we had those kinds of shoes, landscaping, you know the drill. Retail sales will have some jobs but how much do the unemployed buy in retail shops?

Your complaint about immigrants is unfounded and delusional. Immigrants go for the jobs that Americans don't want or are unwilling to do at the pay offered, usually at some fraction of the minimum wage--after all illegal immigrants are not about to complain about not being paid minimum wage. This is, as far as I am concerned, the best argument for granting some form of legal position for these illegal immigrants, it at least gives them a standing in terms of the law. In point of fact, it is people like you, an obvious puppet of the Big Corps, that want those illegals here in the first place, it gives them cheap cannon fodder and they pay them low wages without any benefits.

[99er2049er]

12:23 AM on 04/08/2011

The worst part about outsourcing jobs is these jobs won't come back. So we ship out millions of jobs and industries to 3rd world countries. So we are supposed to retrain the people who lost their jobs in these industries. OK, what do you retrain them to do??? You need new industries to grow and take over so we can hire those people. e.g. alternative energy, new technology, etc. But think about how long this takes and how many millions of people need to be placed into these new positions.

We need to help the people who have been left behind and the people that lost their jobs during the recession.

[dwhuston]

07:44 PM on 04/07/2011

Well I do oppose illegal immigration, but the facts are its not really any bigger an issue or problem than it has been in the past. Its being used by conservatives mainly as a straw man to give them something to rail against and to sidestep the issue that they have no answers to anything at this point. If they can blame everything wrong in this country on illegal immigrants then they don't have to do anything.

It kind of sounds like your on board with that.

[Lancer 101]

04:35 PM on 04/07/2011

Writers, newscasters and bloggers need to read up on the fallacy of the unemployment rate, and show that the Dept. of Labor's jobless rate is not the whole picture:

http://www.bestcashcow.com/articles/the-fallacy-of-unemployment-7545

[99er2049er]

12:25 AM on 04/08/2011

We are over 17.5%, really over 20% unemployed and under employed, including those that fell off the unemployment system (millions no longer are allowed to claim unemployment. In California I believe the number is 330,000 people right now that no longer are eligible for unemployment compensation, so they don't count on the real unemployment numbers). It's far worse than what is being reported folks.

[outahere]

03:36 PM on 04/07/2011

El Centro, Calif. 26.9
Yuma, Ariz. 21.5
Merced, Calif. 21.3
Yuba City, Calif. 21.3
Fresno, Calif. 18.2
Modesto, Calif. 18.1
Visalia-Porterville, Calif. 18.1
Hanford-Corcoran, Calif. 18.0
Stockton, Calif. 17.6
Ocean City, N.J. 17.0

These all vote red - what are they thinking or are they not thinking

[verycold]

07:11 PM on 04/07/2011

What?  I know Ocean City.  I grew up in NJ.  NJ is a blue state and so is CA.

[Larry A Cochran]

08:34 PM on 04/07/2011

Thanks for correcting this individual.

[noaxe397]

08:34 AM on 04/08/2011

Yuma is represented by Raul Grijalva, the DEMOCRATIC co chair of the House progressive caucus.

[Richard Lee Wilson]

02:46 PM on 04/07/2011

One way to get out? Elect politicians who repeal NAFTA, criminalize outsourcing. Bring jobs back, the middle class factory jobs, rebuild our infrastrucure, mass transit, rail, etc....institute a national hc system.....if a person doesnt abide by this, dont elect him or her. The lefts problem is its become lost in a myriad of issues, issues that are secondary to the main one: economy, economy. Get out of the wars. Act like Democrats, act like the party who fought for the working class. facebook, richard l wilson. start now.

[MrStat1]

03:51 PM on 04/07/2011

But what if I support NAFTA, oppose national health care, see nothing wrong with outsourcing and support the wars in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan? Are you saying I should not vote for candidates who represent my views, values and beliefs?

[StJames]

03:56 PM on 04/07/2011

No he's saying you should go hang yourself.  What a really stupid question.

[skraeling]

05:54 PM on 04/07/2011

uh, you might seek medical help...

[verycold]

07:17 PM on 04/07/2011

We are now talking earnestly about  committing troops on the ground in Libya.  It is obvious that democrats support wars as well. 

You cannot criminalize outsourcing.  Anyway a lot of that is coming back to the US anyway.  BTW, Obama said during the presidential campaign that those outsourced jobs are gone forever.  At the time, he wasn't sorry about that because frankly they weren't great paying jobs. 

Intel, GE, CY, are 3 companies I am familiar with that are building plants in the US and choosing to create jobs here.  Let's stop bashing them for a minute and be thankful that these 3 companies will be creating good paying jobs.  We bailed out GM and many of the jobs they created after getting taxpayer dollars was used to create jobs in Mexico and China.  Now I have a big problem with that. 

This isn't a left of right thing.  Nobody hires people and asks them what party to do they belong to.  I sure hope not anyway. 

What is the middle class to you?  What is the salary range?

[99er2049er]

12:28 AM on 04/08/2011

I am mad at any party that outsources our jobs. I have worked for hi-tech companies all my life. It used to be that we would hire IT personnel for example who were Americans. The last jobs I worked at, outsourced the entire IT operations to India and Russia. We would either bring them in on visa's or send the work directly to the programmers and it personnel in those countries. Either way, that was a batch of jobs taken away from Americans (not low paying jobs, but high paying jobs).

[Richard Lee Wilson]

02:41 PM on 04/07/2011

the rural pacific nw has had 15%-30% since..1986.....and the Indian reservations, which noone ever talks about, one would think america only has blacks and mexicans as minorities....unemployment rates there are up to 80 %....and the suicide rate is 300-5000 times worse for Indians than the rest of Americans , yet the gay teen rate is 2-5 times and is considered "epiemic"? 300 tribes not recongnized as "native", yet the only recognition america thinks about is gay marriage. sad...really sad. this nation has become nothing but a slum.

[StJames]

03:58 PM on 04/07/2011

What does "not native" mean? I am serious...this is a new one to me...so your point is made, because it shouldn't be.  

Sad to say, but we are still a nation of cowboys...or hadn't you noticed?

[RedRat]

06:31 PM on 04/07/2011

I think he is referring to recognition by the Bureau of Indian Affairs of what is a Indian Tribe. There are some legal standards about this. Here in Washington State, a tribe must be able to prove that it was organized and existed when the various treaties were signed with the Federal government back in the 19th Century. How it plays out in other states, I don't know.

Unfortunately for many of the tribes, or would be tribes, if they have no written records or mention in official documents, it becomes very hard to prove they are a tribe. Further, many have just evaporated as tribal members moved away and got lost in the mainstream population.

[skraeling]

05:56 PM on 04/07/2011

Indians don't stay on the reservations, so to measure the rates there is somewhat useless....As for the points you raise, some are legit...but alcohol and drugs play a huge roll in all of it...

[RedRat]

06:38 PM on 04/07/2011

It kind of depends where you are in the US. Yes, younger tribal members do want to seek their fortune off the tribal lands, but they still are considered tribal members. In some ways, the reservation lands was not the greatest idea. I think it was done by a combination of well meaning types along with some not so well meaning types. These lands were created in the 19th century to sort of preserve the "noble Red Man" in basically a museum type atmosphere that white Americans could come and visit and buy trinkets. What it ended up doing is to put Native Americans in a sort of limbo, the tribes as wards of the federal government and given a quasi sovereign status, but not quite, never allowed the tribes to grow both culturally and socially. The reservations were not funded well until only about 20-30 years ago. Schools were basically an after thought. So many of the young people on reservations were and are not able to quite fit into the majority of American culture and society. I suspect that this why the drug/alcohol abuse is so high.