Among the 10 metropolitan areas that are home to baseball teams in the 2012 Major League Baseball (MLB) playoffs, unemployment rates in August 2012 ranged from 5.5 percent in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV, to 10.9 percent in Detroit-Warren-Livonia, Michigan.
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Among the MLB playoff metropolitan areas, the largest over-the-year unemployment rate decrease in August 2012 occurred in Cincinnati-Middletown, OH-KY-IN, where the rate decreased from 8.6 percent to 6.7 percent (a decrease of 1.9 percentage points). The New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA, area was the only one that registered an over-the-year increase in its jobless rate.
Among all of the nation's 372 metropolitan areas, Bismarck, North Dakota, registered the lowest unemployment rate, 2.6 percent in August 2012. El Centro, California, and Yuma, Arizona, recorded the highest unemployment rates, 29.9 percent each. In August, 54 metropolitan areas reported jobless rates of at least 10.0 percent, down from 99 areas a year earlier, while 123 areas posted rates below 7.0 percent, up from 73 areas in August of last year.
Unemployment rates were lower in August 2012 than a year earlier in 325 of the nation's 372 metropolitan areas, higher in 40 areas, and unchanged in 7 areas. The largest over-the-year unemployment rate decrease was registered in Pascagoula, Mississippi (−3.0 percentage points); 25 additional areas had decreases of 2.0 percentage points or more. Elmira, New York, reported the largest over-the-year jobless rate increase (+1.6 percentage points), followed by Kennewick-Pasco-Richland, Washington (+1.5 points).
These metropolitan area data are from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program; these data are not seasonally adjusted. Data for the most recent month are preliminary and subject to revision. To learn more, see "Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment — August 2012" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-12-1980. Oakland-Fremont-Hayward and San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City are metropolitan divisions; both are part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, California, metropolitan area.
United States Department of Labor
