Are there some useful sources for looking up detailed state-by-state statistics? Employment info, facts, etc?

Besides the bureau of labor and statistics web page, can anyone point me to useful (preferably text-based) sources covering standard fields of information for the 50 US states? I'm looking for up-to-date information to ist in a job hunt. Before I even begin picking businesses to target, I'd like to matter-of-factly determine which states would be most suitable to live in (my specific profession is irrelevant). What would be best? A thesaurus or encyclopedia? It would be particularly helpful if these books were easily obtainable at your local borders/barnes&nobles/library. Thanks in advance!