In this paper, we first develop a triple-goal small area estimation methodology for simultaneous estimation of unemployment rates for U.S. states using the Current Population Survey (CPS) data and a two-level random sampling variance normal model. The main goal of this paper is to illustrate the utility of the triple-goal methodology in generating a single series of unemployment rate estimates for three separate purposes: developing estimates for individual small area means, producing empirical

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... distribution function (EDF) of true small area means, and the ranking of the small areas by true small area means. We achieve our goal using a Monte Carlo simulation experiment and a real data analysis.