10 States With The Highest Unemployment Rates: BLS

Job creation in the United States has been weak, at best, in recent months. And for those states most devastated by the financial crisis, that truth truth has been particularly devastating.

Indeed, the degree by which the unemployment crisis has affected communities varies across the country, with states like South Carolina and Florida particularly feeling the heat. Of them all, though, no state has a higher rate than Nevada, currently at 12.4 percent, according to a report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.

Nevada's fall from grace has been hard and fast. Devastated by the thunderous bust of the housing crisis, Nevada's tourism has also suffered mightily, tumbling 11.9 percent at the onset of the recession, the Las Vegas Sun then reported.

Other particularly hard-hit states include mega-states, like California with its 11.8 percent unemployment rate, and tiny Rhode Island, which currently has an unemployment rate of 10.8 percent. For both those states, hard times didn't arrive alongside the financial crisis. According to the Seattle Times, Rhode Island has been losing jobs since as early as 2006. In California, on the other hand, many have yet to recover from the bursting of the 1990s tech bubble.

The following are the ten states with the highest unemployment rates: