Profile America: First Local Unemployment Assistance

UNEMPLOYMENT HELP FROM CITY HALL

Profile America —  A severe economic panic, striking in 1893, led the city of Seattle to create the nation’s first municipal unemployment assistance office on this date in 1894. State and federal unemployment assistance wasn’t established until the 1930s. Recently, the national unemployment rate, as determined by the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, has settled to around 5 percent. In 2010, Washington state’s average was at the then national average of 9.6 percent. The most current unemployment rate in Washington state is 5.3 percent.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau