The unemployment rates in New Hampshire and South Dakota dropped to 1.8% in June, according to government data released Friday morning, setting a joint record for the lowest state unemployment rate ever recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Unemployment rates in June dropped in 11 states from the month prior, the BLS said Friday, and 22 states have lower unemployment rates today than they did a year ago.
Nebraska and Vermont also sported unemployment rates below 2%. The unemployment rates in Arkansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania dropped to their lowest points since the bureau began measuring state-level unemployment in 1976.
Thirty-five states have set record-low unemployment rates since 2022. Today, twenty-two states have jobless rates below 3%.
Nevada has the nation’s highest unemployment rate, at 5.4%. But even the Silver State sports a silver lining: Nevada employers added 59,100 new jobs in the past year, a 4% increase and tied with Texas for the fastest pace of job growth.
In the last year, Texas has added more than 542,000 jobs, while California tacked on another 397,000 positions and Florida added 319,000. Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington all added more than 100,000 jobs.