The unemployment rate across the United States is falling. Through April of this year, 269 of the country’s 387 metro areas experienced a decrease in the jobless rate. That doesn’t mean, however, that there aren’t still some areas with extremely inflated rates.
In April, there were still seven metro areas across the country with an unemployment rate of 10 percent or higher. Five of these areas are in California with El Centro, Calif. having the highest unemployment rate in the U.S. at 20.1 percent. Yuma, Ariz.; Merced, Calif.; Ocean City, N.J.; Visalia-Porterville, Calif.; Bakersfield, Calif.; and Hanford-Corcoran, Calif., were the other six areas over 10 percent, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Additionally, the Wall Street Journal compiled a list showing the unemployment rates for April 2015, April 2016, and the percent change during this time period for every metro area in the country. For example, the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro had an unemployment rate of 5.6 in 2015 and 6.2 percent in 2016 for a 0.6 percent growth. Another major metro area, the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro, had an April 2015 unemployment rate of 5.6 percent and an April 2016 rate of 4.5 percent totaling a -0.8 percent change.
Of the 118 metros that did not experience a drop in the unemployment rate, 94 areas saw an increase and another 24 saw the rate hold steady.
To view your own metro area and how the jobless rate has improved or worsened over the past year, follow the link below.
