WASHINGTON 鈥� The D.C. metro area has one of the lowest big-city unemployment rates in the nation, and it fell in December.
The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics says the D.C.-metro area’s unemployment rate was 2.9 percent in December. That’s down from 3 percent in November, and down from 3.3 percent a year earlier.
The city of Baltimore’s unemployment was unchanged in December at 3.5 percent, though that is lower than the 3.9 percent unemployment rate in December 2017.
In total, unemployment rates fell in 250 of the nation’s 388 metropolitan areas.
Nashville, Tennessee, had the lowest December unemployment rate among cities with a metro population of 1 million or more, at 2.3 percent. Cleveland had the highest big-city unemployment rate, at 4.9 percent.
Ames, Iowa, retained the title of lowest unemployment rate among all metro areas, at just 1.4 percent in December.
