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Virginia unemployment falls to 17-year low

WASHINGTON — Virginia’s November unemployment was the lowest since April 2001, falling to 2.8 percent from October’s 2.9 percent.

Virginia remains one of eight states with an unemployment rate under 3 percent. It added 75,100 new non-farm jobs from November 2017, for an annual job growth rate of 1.9 percent.

The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that Maryland’s unemployment rate fell to 4 percent in November, down from 4.1 percent in October.

Maryland also added 36,7000 non-farm jobs in the past year, for an annual job growth rate of 1.9 percent.

Hawaii and Iowa tied for the lowest state unemployment rate in November, at 2.4 percent.

Meanwhile, Alaska had the highest state unemployment rate last month, at 6.3 percent.

America 250: How people ordered their ready-to-assemble homes from a catalog

For decades, Americans could browse a catalog, choose a home and order it by mail. Sears, Roebuck and Company was a prominent manufacturer of mail-order homes. The company sold about 70,000 to 75,000 homes from 1908 to 1940, according to the Sears Archives. Its catalogs offered more than 400 different house styles and the listed prices could range from around $200 to $6,000. Customers even had the option of designing their own home and submitting the blueprint to Sears.
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