Unemployment, States | featured news

Mark Simmons began dialing Rhode Island's unemployment call center at 8 a.m. on a recent Monday. He got a busy signal. He tried 67 more times before the automated system picked up and told him that because of heavy call volume, he should try back another time....

An increase in hiring helped lower unemployment rates in 37 U.S. states last month, the latest indication that the job market is slowly healing.

As slow as the recovery in jobs has been, a few states are doing quite well. Seven have more jobs now than before the recession. Some - Texas, North Dakota and Alaska - are benefiting from an oil boom... The other states that have regained all their lost jobs are: New York, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and South Dakota. New York has seen broad-based gains in education and health care, financial services,and other professional services such as legal services and accounting.

Despite soaring poverty and unemployment, California and Los Angeles County have fared better on many indicators during the recession than the nation as a whole, according to a report released Tuesday by USC.

The state is borrowing $40 million a day from the federal government to provide assistance to jobless workers, but has resisted changing the formulas it uses to determine and fund those benefits.California's fund for paying unemployment insurance is broke.

U.S. employment opportunities remain bleak as September's regional and state unemployment rates climbed in 23 states and the District of Columbia.