Twelve states hit record-low unemployment as U.S. labor market continues to thrive
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New data continue to demonstrate the strength of the U.S. labor market and the nation’s continued economic recovery under the stewardship of President Joe Biden.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report Friday showing that March unemployment rates had dropped in 37 states while remaining stable in the other 13 states and the District of Columbia. Compared to March 2021, “all 50 states and the District had jobless rate decreases,” noted the report.
The national rate, 3.6%, declined slightly from the month previous but was fully 2.4 points lower than in March 2021. Fifteen states also logged unemployment rates lower than the national rate of 3.6%.
In addition, 12 states hit record-low rates. Among those all-time lows, Nebraska and Utah logged the lowest rates in the country at 2% each. Very close behind were Indiana at 2.2% and Montana at 2.3%. The other states hitting all-time lows included: Alaska (5.0%), Arizona (3.3%), Georgia (3.1%), Idaho (2.7%), Mississippi(4.2%), Tennessee (3.2%), West Virginia (3.7%), and Wisconsin (2.8%).
Relative to last year, Nevada has seen the largest drop (-4.2%) in its unemployment rate to 5.0%.
The news sparked a round of local headlines across the country, some of them in important midterm swing states:
- Wisconsin Public Radio: Wisconsin unemployment rate hit record low in March
- Fox 5 Atlanta: Georgia unemployment rate falls to new all-time low
- Arizona Public Radio KJZZ: Report shows low Arizona unemployment rate in March
- CBS Miami: Report: Florida Workers Shifting To Higher-Paying Jobs As Unemployment Rate Dips To 3.2 Percent In March
- CarsonNow: Nevada adds jobs in March; Reno employment at new all-time high
Governors in many states were quick to take credit for their booming economies, but, by and large, this was a Biden recovery fueled in no small part by the American Rescue Plan that every single Republican in Congress voted against.
“Americans are getting back to work in every corner of the country in record numbers. Right now, 17 states are at or tied with the lowest unemployment rate they’ve ever had—and 20 states have jobless rates below 3%,” read a White House statement from the president. “This wasn’t an accident: this was the direct result of my economic plan to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out.”
That the U.S. economy is running hotter than virtually every other economy in the world might be finally starting to sink in with Americans. On Thursday, a report from the University of Michigan showed that U.S. consumer sentiment had begun to rebound for the first time since December. In fact, the consumer sentiment index made the biggest one-month jump since 2006.
The following graph provides a sense of just how quickly the U.S. economy is recovering under President Biden compared to other recent recoveries.
Skanda Amarnath, executive director of Employ America, defined “generationally disastrous” in a follow-up tweet as, “Taking over a decade to see a recovery from a recession seems pretty bad (2010s). Not completing the recovery is even worse (2000s).”