Economy, 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....

U.S. states are coming close to the end of a three-year trek back to the financial prosperity they enjoyed before the recession, according to a survey released on Friday that found the recovery is slow and uneven.

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.

Unemployment rates rose in 44 U.S. states in July, the most states to show a monthly increase in more than three years and a reflection of weak hiring nationwide. The Labor Department said Friday that unemployment rates fell in only two states and were unchanged in four.

The European meltdown is weighing heavily on the U.S. economy, with states that rely heavily on exports most at risk from the deepening crisis overseas. An analysis by Wells Fargo estimates that Utah and West Virginia economies face the biggest risk from the problems in the eurozone, while many Western states including Wyoming and Colorado are unlikely to see much impact.

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.

While some income inequality is generally considered necessary in a free market economy, extreme inequality is not. In the United States, there are far more poor people than wealthy ones -- and the gap between the rich and poor is growing.

The ability of individuals to achieve the American dream depends on where they live, according to the first state-by-state look at the opportunity to move up the economic ladder. People who live in Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Utah are more likely to improve their economic standing after their prime working years than the typical American, a study by the Pew Charitable Trusts finds.

Jobless rates in 20 states were above the national rate of 9.1 percent in August, with Nevada's level springing up to 13.4 percent, the Labor Department said on Friday.

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.