The overall US unemployment rate at 3.6% remains at a 50-year low. The metropolitan area rate is a shade lower. I summarized metro area unemployment rates for those which have a city in the top 100 of population. Only 73 metro areas remain, since 27 cities are the second or smaller city in their metro areas. The average metro area unemployment rate for these top 100 areas is 3.4%. The median metro unemployment rate is 3.3%.

Democratic mayors led the main cities in two-thirds of the largest metro areas. Republicans, independents, nonpartisans or split results led in the remaining one-third (24/73).

Democratic mayor lead metro areas have median and average unemployment rates at 3.2%, significantly below the national 3.5-3.6% rate. The Republican+Other metro areas show 3.4% median and 3.9% average unemployment rates, just slightly higher.

The claim that Democrats are “bad” for the economy is not supported by this data.

Republicans and independents/nonpartisans/split mayors lead 8 metro areas with unemployment in the historically unheard of 2% range:

Denver, Colorado Springs, Omaha, Tulsa and Oklahoma City in the prairie states. Miami, Virginia Beach and Honolulu complete the set.

Non-Democratic mayors also lead 8 southwestern cities with higher-than-average unemployment (4%+): Reno, Las Vegas, Laredo, Corpus Christi, Riverside, Stockton, Fresno and Bakersfield.

Only 5 Democratic lead cities, versus 8 Republican/Other cities, had 4%+ unemployment rates in May, 2023: New York and Los Angeles, Houston, El Paso and New Orleans.

31Democratic mayor lead metro areas had strong 3% unemployment. 13 boasted amazing 2% unemployment rates: Boise, Lincoln, Nashville; Madison, Minneapolis-St Paul; Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando; Richmond, DC, Boston, Baltimore.

Summary

Metro area unemployment is even lower than the 50-year low national average.

Democratic led metro areas have slightly lower unemployment rates.

We have 6 large metro areas with 2.5% or lower unemployment: Lincoln, Madison, Omaha, Boston, Baltimore and Miami.

Our very worst metro areas (of 100) are El Paso, Corpus Christi and Laredo at 4.5% and Las Vegas (5.6%), Stockton (5.9%), Fresno (7.5%) and Bakersfield (8.6%).

The American economy is delivering truly amazing results.

https://www.bls.gov/web/metro/laummtrk.htm

https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_current_mayors_of_the_top_100_cities_in_the_United_States