The unemployment rate stood below the 5% line in 15 states last
month, the latest sign of a healthier labor market across a broad
swath of the country.
The tally, which matched the largest number of states below that
mark in six years, also highlighted how some regions, particularly
the South and far West, are still struggling with elevated
joblessness.
With the midterm elections just weeks away, the speed of the
labor market's recovery could play an important role in at least a
half-dozen states with close races for governor.
Oil-rich North Dakota had the nation's lowest unemployment rate
at 2.8%, while Georgia had the highest reading at 7.8%, the Labor
Department said Tuesday. The rate in Colorado fell to 4.7% from
5.1% in August, making it the latest state to slip below 5%.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, was quick to tout
the latest figures. "Now is the time to keep at it, to seize
momentum," he said Tuesday, while noting the state has added jobs
for 35 straight months.
Mr. Hickenlooper is locked in a close race with Republican
candidate Bob Beauprez, who noted earlier this month that while
energy production has helped much of the state, "far too many
Colorado families are still waiting for recovery to come to their
kitchen table."
The jobless rate also fell in Florida, to 6.1%, the lowest
reading since Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, was elected in 2010.
The rate was 11% when his opponent, former governor Charlie Crist,
left office.
The national unemployment rate was 5.9% in September, and has
fallen in most states over the past year. But not all incumbents
can tout an improving economy.
The jobless rate fell in Georgia but is virtually unchanged from
a year earlier. Georgia state senator and Democratic gubernatorial
candidate Jason Carter has made the state's high jobless rate a
focus of his campaign challenging incumbent Republican Gov. Nathan
Deal.
The states with unemployment rates below 5% are concentrated in
the middle of the country--and are generally more lightly
populated, representing less than 12% of the country's population.
There are fewer workers in those 15 states than in California.
Despite the improvement across the past year in most states,
only four--North Dakota, Minnesota, Ohio and Michigan--had lower
unemployment rates last month than in September 2007, a few months
before the recession began.
North Dakota has benefited from jobs tied to oil and gas
production, while Ohio and Michigan recorded increasing
unemployment rates during 2007 as the manufacturing sector began to
struggle. The rate last month in Ohio was 5.6%, while the rate in
Michigan was 7.2%.
The jobless rate in Minnesota was 4.1% in September, down a
half-percentage point from seven years earlier. The number reflects
the state's diverse employment base, growth in health-care jobs at
the Mayo Clinic and other providers and its proximity to North
Dakota, said Laura Kalambokidis, economist at the University of
Minnesota.
"The agriculture and oil boom is drawing workers over the
border" to North Dakota, she said. And Minnesota was "not overly
represented by sectors hurt hard by the recession, such as
construction."
Write to Eric Morath at eric.morath@wsj.com
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