How Many States Are Triggering the Sahm Rule?

% of states where the average unemployment rate was more than 0.5 percentage points above the prior 12 month low, seasonally adjusted

At the national level, the Sahm Rule identifies signals related to the start of a recession when the three-month moving average of the national unemployment rate (U3) rises by 0.50 percentage points or more relative to its low during the previous 12 months. At the state level, since states are smaller and have more volatile data, we consider the three-month moving average of the state unemployment rate, and also the six-month moving average.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)Get the dataDownload image