New unemployment data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) this week shows that unemployment rates have increased in seven states over the past year.
The report arrives only two weeks before the midterm elections, in which the U.S. economy has been a core issue among candidates and voters.
While the U.S. unemployment rate remains low, the BLS report was released just days after a new round of layoffs hit American workers, with major companies across the retail, technology and pharmaceutical sectors preparing to reduce their workforces.
Some of the most influential announcements came from Kroger, which plans to eliminate about 3,000 corporate positions over the next three years; Pfizer, which confirmed about 150 layoffs at a Michigan manufacturing facility; Amazon, which announced another round of job cuts; and Netflix, which is reportedly preparing a restructuring that could affect about 5 percent of its workforce.
A spokesperson for the BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics program told Newsweek that the data does not contain detailed industry, occupational or demographic information, meaning the new BLS report cannot identify the specific factors driving increases or decreases in state unemployment rates.
What Latest BLS Data Shows
The latest BLS data presents the state of employment and unemployment in all 50 states.
The national unemployment rate is 4.2 percent. According to the most recent report, South Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in September at 2 percent, followed by North Dakota at 2.2 percent. Washington, D.C., was also included in the study and the nation's capital saw the highest unemployment rate at 5.6 percent, followed by California at 5.1 percent.
When comparing the newest data over the previous month, unemployment rates were lower in five states and stable in 45, with none seeing a noteworthy increase in unemployment. However, when comparing this September 2026 to September 2025, unemployment rates increased in seven states.
Those that have seen an increase in their unemployment rate since September 2025 are Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Minnesota, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
Connecticut had the largest unemployment rate increase during this time, at 0.9 percent, bringing the state's September 2026 unemployment rate to 5.1 percent, nearly an entire percentage point above the U.S. average.
The unemployment rate increases per each state are as follows:
- Connecticut: 0.9 percent, bringing the rate to 5.1 percent.
- Alabama: 0.7 percent, bringing the rate to 3.5 percent.
- Arizona: 0.5 percent, bringing the rate to 4.9 percent.
- Hawaii: 0.7 percent, bringing the rate to 2.8 percent.
- Minnesota: 0.4 percent, bringing the rate to 4.5 percent.
- New Mexico: 0.5 percent, bringing the rate to 4.7 percent.
- Oklahoma: 0.6 percent, bringing the rate to 4.2 percent.
States With Unemployment Rates Differing From US Average
The average U.S. unemployment rate is 4.2 percent, with 20 states landing below that figure. Two states and the District of Columbia had rates considered higher than the U.S. average, and 28 states had rates that are "not appreciably different from that of the nation," the report said.
It then went on to show that California and Michigan joined Washington, D.C., with unemployment rates considerably higher than the U.S. average. The states with rates lower than the average are Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
States with Substantial Unemployment Rate Changes (August 2026 to September 2026)
No states had an unemployment rate change large enough to report from August 2026 to September 2026, the data showed.
States with Substantial Employment Changes (August 2026 to September 2026)
The report also included data on states that had a decrease in their unemployment over the last month.
The five states that saw a decrease are Maryland, New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
- Maryland: Reduced by 0.2 percent, bringing the rate to 3.9 percent.
- New Hampshire: Reduced by 0.2 percent, bringing the rate to 2.6 percent.
- Florida: Reduced by 0.1 percent, bringing the rate to 4.4 percent.
- Nevada: Reduced by 0.1 percent, bringing the rate to 4.7 percent.
- Pennsylvania: Reduced by 0.1 percent, bringing the rate to 3.6 percent.
Unemployment rates were largely unchanged in the other 45 states compared to last month's report.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Kate Nalepinski, Edward T. Cummins