The Best and Worst of the U.S. Economy in 2015

It wasn't all that bad a year to be a Motown resident, or a software publisher, or even a job seeker without a high school degree. Homeowners in West Virginia have less reason to be upbeat, and women are more likely to see the cloudy side of the street. Here's how Americans fared in a handful of demographic groups across the economy in 2015:

The labor market this year demonstrated how less can be more. Americans with the least amount of education — less than a high school degree — saw the biggest reduction in joblessness from December 2014, with that unemployment rate dropping 1.7 percentage points. The two higher categories, composed of those with some college or an associate's degree and those with a bachelor's degree or higher, each experienced about a half-point decline in jobless rates. Meanwhile, those with a high school education but no college made no progress, seeing a 0.1 percentage point increase in their unemployment rate.