Twenty-one states had jobless rates significantly lower than the U.S. rate of 7.6 percent, May 2013

Over the month, 6 states had statistically significant unemployment rate changes in May, of which four were declines and two were increases. The significant decreases occurred in California and West Virginia (-0.4 percentage point each) and Hawaii and New York (-0.2 point each). The increases were in Tennessee (+0.3 percentage point) and Kansas (+0.1 point). 

Over the year, 15 states had statistically significant changes from May 2012, all of which were declines.  The largest declines occurred in California (-2.1 percentage points) and Nevada (-2.0 points).

Among the nine geographic divisions, the Pacific continued to have the highest jobless rate, 8.2 percent in May. The West North Central again had the lowest rate, 5.4 percent. The Pacific had the only statistically significant over-the-month unemployment rate change (-0.3 percentage point). Four divisions had significant rate changes from a year earlier: the Pacific (-1.8 percentage points), Mountain (-1.0 point), South Atlantic (-0.9 point), and Middle Atlantic (-0.8 point).

These data are from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program. Data for the most recent month are preliminary and subject to revision. To learn more, see "Regional and State Employment and Unemployment — May 2013" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL‑13‑1180.