DC metro unemployment rate falls to 3.7 percent

WASHINGTON — The D.C. metropolitan area’s unemployment rate remains well below the national average, and fell in November to 3.7 percent, from 3.9 percent in October and down from 4.1 percent a year earlier.

The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics says unemployment rates fell in 271 of the nation’s 387 metropolitan areas in November.

Boston and Salt Lake City tied for the lowest unemployment rate among cities with a population of more than 1 million, at 2.4 percent in November.

Among all cities, Ames, Iowa now claims the title of the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, at just 1.7 percent in November.

At the opposite end of the list remains El Centro, California, with the highest unemployment rate in the nation, at 20.3 percent in November.

Jeff Clabaugh

Jeff Clabaugh has spent 20 years covering the Washington region's economy and financial markets for WTOP as part of a partnership with the Washington Business Journal, and officially joined the WTOP newsroom staff in January 2016.

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