Here’s one national ranking Rhode Island is happy not to lead anymore — the country’s highest unemployment rates.

A report released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that four states recorded higher joblessness last month than Rhode Island: Michigan (12 percent), South Carolina (11 percent), Oregon (10.8 percent) and North Carolina (10.7 percent).

Rhode Island –– where the unemployment rate is 10.5 percent –– is tied for fifth place with California. The national unemployment rate is 8.1 percent.

Last September, Rhode Island had the highest unemployment in the nation at 8.8 percent. Michigan was second at 8.7 percent.

The new rankings strengthen arguments that Rhode Island’s soaring joblessness has reflected its premature descent into recession more than any particular economic vulnerabilities.

In a recent interview, Governor Carcieri said the state had exhibited the first symptoms of a national, “classic real-estate recession.”

“Rhode Island had one of the biggest inflation rates in real-estate prices,” Carcieri said. “We went through the classic real-estate boom. When the bubble burst, we felt it early.”

Housing prices in Rhode Island collapsed earlier than in most markets across the country, triggering a devastating wave of foreclosures, paralysis in the construction sector and depressed consumer spending. Gross domestic product declines in Rhode Island began in January 2007, a year before the national recession began.

The 4.8 percentage-point increase in the state’s unemployment rate last year led the nation. Only North Carolina, where unemployment grew by 4 percentage points, and Nevada, up 3.9 percentage points, came close.

Now, many states are catching up.

In February, “regional and state unemployment rates were nearly all higher,” according to the new report. “Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia recorded over-the-month unemployment rate increases.”

Rhode Island’s jobless rate rose by just two-tenths of a point in February, compared with nine-tenths of a point the previous month. That was half the increase in Massachusetts, where 1,100 government employees got pink slips last month. In North Carolina and Oregon, the unemployment rate jumped by a full percentage point.

“We went down pretty fast, maybe we’ve seen the bottom,” Gary E. Furtado, president of the Navigant Credit Union, said in an interview yesterday. Sales of foreclosed properties in Central Falls have spiked, Furtado said, as has mortgage refinancing.

Navigant, the oldest credit union in Rhode Island, has maintained its 200-person staff and is building a $1.5-million branch in Smithfield that is scheduled to open in June.

The federal stimulus plan is designed to energize the slumping economy, in part by animating idled construction crews. To take full advantage, the Department of Labor in Maine, for instance, is hosting free classes to give workers construction safety certificates.

In Rhode Island, state officials say they hope the federal spending will continue to slow the rise in unemployment.

But for now, the state’s 10.5-percent jobless rate means there are 59,700 residents searching for paychecks and experiencing long wait times to contact the unemployment insurance office.

The new report shows Rhode Island leading the region in joblessness, a full 2.5 percentage points ahead of Maine (8 percent), its closest rival for the undesirable distinction. The next worse jobless rate in New England is in Massachusetts (7.8 percent), followed by Connecticut (7.4 percent) and Vermont (7 percent).

In New Hampshire, where there is no sales or personal income tax, businesses have been holding onto their workers. The Granite State’s jobless rate is only 5.3 percent.

Some economists have projected that Rhode Island’s jobless level will worsen throughout the year, eventually surpassing 11 percent.

Meanwhile, the “unrelenting deterioration of the national economy,” as John Tirinzonie, state labor economist for Connecticut put it, is hurting Rhode Island.

Edinaldo Tebaldi, an economics professor at Bryant University, said growing national unemployment reduces out-of-state job options for Rhode Islanders and slows sales of Rhode Island products.

“Other states are feeling the crunch. It’s no surprise that they are catching up,” Tebaldi said. “It doesn’t say anything good about our economy. Rhode Island is not doing well. The fact that others are worse off does not make us better off.”

bgedan@projo.com