Click here to view a larger version.) / " title="ABOVE, THE STATE-BY-STATE UNEMPLOYMENT picture in July. The darker-colored states have higher jobless rates. (Click here to view a larger version.) /"/>PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island continued to have the second-worst rate of joblessness in the nation last month, the U.S. Labor Department said today.
Rhode Island’s unemployment rate rose to 12.7 percent in July from 12.4 percent in June, the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said. The labor picture continued to be worse only in Michigan, although that state’s jobless rate declined slightly to 15 percent last month, the agency said. It was the first state to record 15-percent unemployment in a quarter-century.
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Rhode Island had the highest unemployment rate in the nation last September, but in the months since hard-hit Michigan has had the worst level of joblessness. Rhode Island fell back further in some of the intervening months as states such as South Carolina recorded high rates, as well.
After Rhode Island, the highest July jobless rates were in Nevada (12.5 percent); California (11.9 percent); Oregon (also 11.9 percent); and South Carolina (11.8 percent). Unemployment rates rose in 26 states in July, fewer than the prior month, when 38 states posted higher rates.
In all, 14 states and Washington, D.C., had jobless rates measurably higher in July than the U.S. figure of 9.4 percent, the agency reported. Sixteen of the 50 states had double-digit unemployment rates in July, unchanged from the month before.
Rhode Island continued to be a regional outlier, as well, as the only state in the Northeast with unemployment above the U.S. rate of 9.4 percent, as the region once again posted the lowest regional jobless rate in the nation at 8.7 percent.
Rhode Island lost 17,500 jobs between July 2008 and July 2009 as the unemployment rate jumped from 7.9 percent to 12.7 percent.
The unemployment rate was 8.8 percent in Massachusetts, ranked 23rd-highest in the country, and 7.8 percent in Connecticut, which ranked 32nd.
“State revenues could fall short of expectations if consumer spending doesn’t pick up and if the labor market fails to improve,” Alex Miron, an analyst at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pa., told Bloomberg News after the report was released. “We’re going to see higher unemployment over the months ahead.”
