How does California stack up on jobs?

Badly. August's 12.4 percent jobless rate was the third highest in the nation (after Nevada and Michigan). As for the payroll numbers, Michigan had the largest number of jobs lost - 50,300 - followed by Texas (-34.200) and California (-33,600). All told, payroll jobs fell in 36 states, which tells you a lot about the state of the economy. North Dakota continued to register the lowest jobless rate, at 3.7 percent, and North Carolina had the largest number of job gains, at 18,600. Here's the BLS release.