(Bloomberg) -- It wasn't all that bad a year to be a Motownresident, or a software publisher, or even a job seeker without ahigh school degree.

Read: Year in review: Transamerica, Vanguard, andOneAmerica execs

Homeowners in West Virginia have less reason to be upbeat, andwomen are more likely to see the cloudy side of thestreet.

Here's how Americans fared in a handful of demographicgroups across the economy in 2015.

Unemployment

The labor market this year demonstrated how less can be more.Americans with the least amount of education--less than a highschool degree--saw the biggest reduction in joblessness fromDecember 2014, with that unemployment rate dropping 1.7 percentagepoints.

Read: 2016 health insuranceoutlook

The two higher categories, composed of those with some collegeor an associate's degree and those with a bachelor's degree orhigher, each experienced about a half-point decline in joblessrates.

Read: 4 predictions about non-traditional workplaceperks

Meanwhile, those with a high school education but no collegemade no progress, seeing a 0.1 percentage point increase in theirunemployment rate.

The caveat for those most-improved: Job seekers with theleast education still have the highest rate of unemployment, at 6.9percent in November.

That compares with 2.5 percent among the most educatedAmericans, and a 5 percent overall unemployment rate that's at itslowest since April 2008.

Wages

Average hourly earnings were sluggish in 2015, climbing 2.3percent in November from a year earlier across 10 industrygroups. A 3.7 percent jump put information workers at the topof the ladder, followed by mining and logging, which is verysurprising given the slump in commodity prices.

Not counting the miscellaneous "other services" group, wagegains in education and health, at 1.9 percent, andin manufacturing fared the worst.

Consumer confidence

The gender divide continued in Americans' moods in 2015.

Sentiment among men stayed higher than for women, accordingto the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index based on weekly datathrough Dec. 20.

Comfort levels for both groups were lower than at the startof the year; a stronger job market and wage accelerationin 2016 would change that.

Home prices

Florida metro areas dominated single-family home price gains inthe 12 months through the third quarter, National Association ofRealtors data show, as foreign buyers, job gains and supplyconstraints drove prices higher.

Regionally, the West and the South saw the strongest growth inproperty values this year, followed by the Midwest, while theNortheast brought up the rear.

In the year ending in September, single-family homes nationwideappreciated by an average 5.5 percent to $229,000. Inflation

While the nation overall continued to enjoy slow price increasesthis year, some cities, especially on the West Coast, saw pricesrising by 1 percent or more. Detroit residents enjoyed the biggestbargain, with cost of living dropping by 0.7 percent.

Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,or redistributed.