El Centro, Calif., Tops Roll Call of Climbing US Jobless Rates at 27.9 Percent

SAN DIEGO (June 2) -- The Southern California town of El Centro suffers the worst unemployment rate in the nation, with nearly 28 percent of its work force without a job, the Labor Department announced today. It was the low point of a report that showed jobless rates are up across the U.S.

The report on April unemployment in 372 metropolitan areas suggests that California continues to be the state hardest hit by the epidemic of joblessness that followed the 2008-2009 financial crisis. It's home to 11 of the 14 U.S. metro areas that posted unemployment rates greater than 15 percent. (See how your city ranks.)

And with the number of cities afflicted by 10 percent joblessness or worse leaping to 128 from just 91 a year earlier, and unemployment climbing in 291 of the 372 cities, today's report highlights the persistent economic and political problem posed by the labor market.

People stand in line for a monthly food handout distributed from the Imperial Valley Food Bank on March 13, 2009 in El Centro, California.

David McNew, Getty Images

People wait in line for a monthly food handout in El Centro, Calif. The Southern California town has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, with 28 percent of its residents out of work, the Labor Department announced today.

"The devastation created by the deepest downturn since the Great Depression has hit people and communities across our country very hard," President Barack Obama noted during a political speech in Pittsburgh. "And it's not going to be a real recovery until people can feel it in their own lives."

With unemployment sure to be one of the biggest issues in November's midterm elections, politicians will join economists in closely reading the national employment and payroll reports for May that are scheduled to be released Friday.

The job creation numbers for April showed a steady increase so far this year in businesses' willingness to hire. But the rising national unemployment rate that month, to a seasonally adjusted 9.9 percent, showed how long a road the country has in putting back to work all those Americans who lost their jobs during the recession.

El Centro, the main city of Imperial County -- with a population of 166,874 in the arid desert region east of San Diego near the Mexican border -- was already suffering high unemployment in April 2009, when its jobless rate was just over 27 percent.

The city with the second-highest unemployment rate was Yuma, Ariz., at 24.4 percent, while Bismarck, N.D. (3.6 percent) and the Fargo, N.D., metro area that sprawls into Minnesota (3.9 percent) enjoyed the healthiest jobless situations.

The Las Vegas region suffered the worst year-to-year increase in unemployment among American cities, up 3.7 percentage points at 14.2 percent, and also had the second-highest rate among metro areas with 1 million citizens or more, behind Detroit (14.8 percent).