NWA's unemployment rate holds lower than national average

The unemployment rate in Northwest Arkansas was up by 0.1 percentage point in February from a year ago but fell by the same amount from January to 2.3%, per a new analysis of Labor Department data from Axios' Kavya Beheraj and Alex Fitzpatrick.

Context: Nationally, the unemployment rate was 3.5% as of March.

Why it matters: Observing only the national unemployment rate can hide significant disparities between cities that are thriving and those that are struggling.

• As of February — the latest month for which city-level data is available — unemployment was below 3% in a handful of major U.S. metros, including Miami (2.2%), Minneapolis (2.4%) and Tampa (2.5%).
• But it was above 4% in other cities, including in Las Vegas (5.7%), Chicago (4.4%), Los Angeles (4.3%) and Houston (4.3%).

Zoom out: City-level unemployment figures tend to closely track national trends, with minor deviations driven by the local economies.

The bottom line: The Fed, meanwhile, is keeping a close eye on employment levels as a measure of the economy's overall temperature.