43 states broke their unemployment records in April

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

last updated 22 May 2020

Forty-three states recorded their highest unemployment rate since the government began tracking the data in 1939, CNN reports based on federal numbers released Friday. Nevada had the highest overall unemployment rate in the country, at 28.2 percent, up from 3.6 in February before the pandemic shutdowns.

The other two states to top 20 percent unemployment in April were Michigan and Hawaii, at 22.7 percent and 22.3 percent respectively. Those states saw particularly high numbers because of their reliance on tourism, in the case of Nevada and Hawaii, and the fact that the auto plants in Michigan were closed during the worst of the outbreak.

Seven states recorded unemployment below 10 percent, MarketWatch reports, with Connecticut the lowest with only 7.9 percent. But CNN cautions that there were errors in the robustness of data collection as well as how that data was classified. Connecticut in particular included a note "that said the federal data must be considered 'inaccurate' and 'severely underestimated.' Instead, the state estimates its true unemployment rate to be around 17.5 percent."

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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