A severe economic panic, striking in 1893, led the city of Seattle to create the nation’s first municipal unemployment assistance office on this date in 1894. State and federal unemployment assistance wasn’t established until the 1930s. Recently, the national unemployment rate, as determined by the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, has settled to a little under 7 percent. In 2010, Washington state’s average was at the then national average of 9.6 percent. The most current unemployment rate is over 6 percent and is one of the statistics immediately accessible on the Census Bureau’s mobile application, called “America’s Economy.” You can find more statistics on communities across the country by downloading the Census Bureau’s “dwellr” mobile application at <www.census.gov/mobile>.