US Counties With the Highest Unemployed
3,219 US counties ranked by unemployed, from highest to lowest. First are Imperial County, CA (70.26), Colusa County, CA (62.66) and Yuma County, AZ (58.55). The middle one of the 3,219 has 15.78.
What this measures
People without a job who looked for one in the past four weeks and could start work. Source: BLS LAUS.
This is a count, so it is ranked per 1,000 residents. Ranked by the raw total, it would just list the biggest counties.
For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.
The 100 highest counties
Every state, highest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | Per 1,000 residents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | 29.29 |
| 2 | Nevada | 26.28 |
| 3 | California | 23.47 |
| 4 | Illinois | 23.07 |
| 5 | New Jersey | 22.77 |
| 6 | Washington | 21.89 |
| 7 | Puerto Rico | 21.74 |
| 8 | Alaska | 20.77 |
| 9 | Texas | 20.63 |
| 10 | New York | 20.00 |
| 11 | Delaware | 19.80 |
| 12 | Michigan | 19.51 |
| 13 | Oregon | 19.39 |
| 14 | Kentucky | 19.37 |
| 15 | Massachusetts | 19.08 |
| 16 | Arizona | 18.74 |
| 17 | Pennsylvania | 18.55 |
| 18 | Colorado | 18.25 |
| 19 | Ohio | 18.12 |
| 20 | North Carolina | 17.40 |
| 21 | Indiana | 17.19 |
| 22 | West Virginia | 17.08 |
| 23 | Connecticut | 16.99 |
| 24 | New Mexico | 16.80 |
| 25 | Louisiana | 16.74 |
| 26 | Idaho | 16.38 |
| 27 | Georgia | 16.11 |
| 28 | Iowa | 15.87 |
| 29 | Tennessee | 15.85 |
| 30 | Rhode Island | 15.82 |
| 31 | Missouri | 15.68 |
| 32 | Oklahoma | 15.48 |
| 33 | Minnesota | 15.12 |
| 34 | Kansas | 14.99 |
| 35 | Wisconsin | 14.99 |
| 36 | Florida | 14.78 |
| 37 | Wyoming | 14.78 |
| 38 | Utah | 14.70 |
| 39 | Arkansas | 14.41 |
| 40 | South Carolina | 14.30 |
| 41 | Virginia | 14.17 |
| 42 | Montana | 14.14 |
| 43 | Hawaii | 13.43 |
| 44 | Maine | 13.34 |
| 45 | Mississippi | 13.20 |
| 46 | New Hampshire | 12.51 |
| 47 | Nebraska | 12.46 |
| 48 | Maryland | 11.59 |
| 49 | Alabama | 11.31 |
| 50 | North Dakota | 11.00 |
| 51 | Vermont | 10.53 |
| 52 | South Dakota | 9.71 |
More on unemployed
A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.