Of the 387 metropolitan areas the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks, six had unemployment rates of 8.0 percent or higher in August, and five of them are in California. They are El Centro, Visalia, Merced, Hanford-Corcoran and Bakersfield-Delano. The sixth, Yuma, is in Arizona.

The rates come from BLS’s metro unemployment table, which covers August 2026, is not seasonally adjusted and is preliminary. The national rate in that month, on the same basis, was 4.3 percent, so these six metros sit at roughly double the nation or far above it.

The table also shows how the five California metros compare with one another and with a year ago. In every case the rate was flat or lower than in August 2025, so the list reflects entrenched unemployment, not a new spike.

BLS updates these metro unemployment rates every month, and the next release, covering September, is scheduled for Oct. 28.

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The six rates, side by side

El Centro, California, had the highest rate in the country at 21.9 percent, down from 22.0 percent a year earlier, with 16,676 people unemployed. Yuma, Arizona, followed at 19.0 percent, unchanged from a year earlier, with 19,558 unemployed. The release puts it this way: “El Centro, CA, had the highest rate, 21.9 percent, followed by Yuma, AZ, 19.0 percent.”

Visalia, California, was third at 10.4 percent, down from 10.6 percent, with 22,443 unemployed. Merced, California, came in at 8.9 percent, down from 9.4 percent, with 10,899 unemployed. Hanford-Corcoran, California, was at 8.5 percent, down from 8.6, with 5,064 unemployed. Bakersfield-Delano, California, was at 8.4 percent, down from 8.7, with 34,759 unemployed.

What the California numbers add up to

Adding the unemployed counts for the five California metros gives about 89,800 people, a total computed from the table rather than a figure BLS publishes. Bakersfield-Delano has the largest count of the six, even though its rate is the lowest of them, because its labor force is much larger than El Centro’s or Hanford-Corcoran’s.

Rates of this size are rare. Across all 387 metros, only 27 had jobless rates below 3.0 percent, and only six reached 8.0 percent. The lowest was Cleveland, Ohio, at 1.8 percent, followed by Bismarck, North Dakota, at 2.0 percent, which puts El Centro’s rate at more than twelve times Cleveland’s. Unemployment rates were lower than a year earlier in 234 of the 387 metros, higher in 126 and unchanged in 27, per the BLS release of Sept. 30.

Just under the line

Fresno, California, missed the 8 percent group narrowly. Its August rate was 7.8 percent, down from 7.9 percent, and BLS names it as the highest rate among the 56 metros with 1 million or more people. Wildwood-The Villages, Florida, was at 7.9 percent, the closest metro to the line outside the six.

Five of six describes the set of places at or above 8.0 percent, not California as a whole. Fresno’s 7.8 percent is the highest among the large metros, which means every one of the 56 largest areas sits below the line. None of the six is among the 56 largest, and four of the five in California have fewer than 25,000 people unemployed.

The release does not explain why the rates in El Centro, Yuma or the other four California metros stay high, and the figures are not adjusted for seasonal patterns, so a month-to-month comparison with July would not be meaningful. A year-over-year comparison, which BLS uses, is the cleaner read.

Checking a local unemployment rate

Anyone in one of these metros, or deciding whether to move to or from one, can find the full set of figures in the same BLS table. Each metro row gives the civilian labor force, the number unemployed and the rate for July and August of both years, so the trend is visible in four columns. Looking at the number of unemployed people alongside the rate helps, since a 21.9 percent rate in a labor force of about 76,000 is a very different job market from 8.4 percent in a labor force of about 414,000 (both labor force sizes are implied by dividing the unemployed count by the rate).

The figures are preliminary, and BLS revises them. The next metro release, covering September, is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. A metro near the line, such as Fresno at 7.8 percent or Wildwood-The Villages at 7.9 percent, could cross 8.0 in that report, and one of the six could drop below it.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.