Unemployment rate map (Jan. 2007 - Nov. 2009)

[Drummer's Wife]

This is interesting (and depressing) to see how unemployment rates have gone up in different states/counties. If you click play it shows the change over the past 2 years.

Of course, it doesn't include people who have taken paycuts in order to keep their job (my DH was one, though I am super grateful he wasn't included in the last two layoffs at his company).

Link here.

[HeatherAtHome]

Wow. That looks a little frightening. Like a disease spreading across the country. I wonder what Canada and other parts of the world would look like.

So how did it stay nice and yellow in the middle? Is it because they're all big farms?

[caiesmommy]

That's super scary and sad

[Drummer's Wife]

Originally Posted by HeatherAtHome

So how did it stay nice and yellow in the middle? Is it because they're all big farms?

I was wondering about that, too. Farming may be it.

[Satori]

Originally Posted by HeatherAtHome

Wow. That looks a little frightening. Like a disease spreading across the country. I wonder what Canada and other parts of the world would look like.

So how did it stay nice and yellow in the middle? Is it because they're all big farms?

Because its moving into the center but the available data ended before it could reach that far. Remember that was covering 2 years of data, in another year it could be covering the middle too.

[sweetjasmine]

Makes me want to cry for our country.

[MyLilPwny]

Its getting worse and worse. Any ideas on when the trend will reverse and how? Otherwise, what is it going to look like in 2 more years from now? They'll have to add more color coding for 15% rate or greater, etc.

[Theia]

Also, unfortunately, this map doesn't show those who are unemployed and no longer seeking work. Maybe that would change the country's mid-section results, and I'm sure would require them to add another color or two beyond the 10%. Very sad indeed.

I wonder if they could take employment data from like 2004 and then go into the present. I think that would be more likely to catch those who are no longer seeking. Or maybe do it for a whole 10 years. Right after the dotcom bubble bust. The uncounted no longer seeking I think would significantly change the numbers.

[bigteamug]

Yeah, I would add that they probably used the data provided by the gov't, which understates how bad it is.

I wonder how much higher the real number is? 20% instead of 10? There are so many funky factors of underemployment, paycuts, etc.

I am so glad that my grandparents who lived thru the Great Depression aren't hear to see things now, and at the same time I wish I could talk to them about things.....

[EricaDoula]

Sad and scary!

[~Boudicca~]

This is always interesting as well.

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate...loyment-charts

[SunshineJ]

That's really frightening. What it probably also doesn't include are the people who are still seeking work but who have expanded all of their unemployment benefits and are now "off the radar". Scary stuff! I wonder if the powers that be in the government have actually seen this, I think it may be an eye opener to some of them (general comment, not referring to anyone in particular).

[mnnice]

Originally Posted by Satori

Because its moving into the center but the available data ended before it could reach that far. Remember that was covering 2 years of data, in another year it could be covering the middle too.

I am sure that's part of it, but the other part is oil and oil prices that were very high in 2008. Wyoming and North Dakota are full of oil.

Also most people farming commodity crops had very good years the past couple of years. In October of 2008 I spent part of a day at a car dealership with my FIL picking up his new pick up. The place was crammed with other farmers doing the same thing (at a time when the rest of the world was talking about AIG and foreclosures) I am pretty sure my IL's made more money in 2009 than they did in the entire mid-1990 put together.

[Leta]

Well, something to consider is that, in many of the central western states, the population is at the about the same levels that it was around the time of the Civil War. Giant farms that are mostly mechanized feed food producers and animal feedlots, but don't support a lot of people- neither families nor staff.

Another way to put it would be to say that nobody goes there looking for work. The fifteen people who support the fifty people who live in that county know that there aren't anymore jobs to be had, so when a couple gets divorced or a kid graduates, someone moves to look for work.

It's weird that my county grew darker. We are doing okay here, compared to the rest of Michigan, anyway. (Even though that's like the taller than Mickey Rooney award.) I know for sure that we're better off here than we were downstate.

Given what I know about the Great Depression, I think that what the government has done has, at least so far, kept things from getting worse. I think the question now is, how/when will things get better? And is there anything the government can do to speed that process along?

Because I don't believe in this "jobless recovery" crap. I heard that phrase after 9/11, and I thought it was an oxymoron then!

[kittywitty]

Originally Posted by SunshineJ

That's really frightening. What it probably also doesn't include are the people who are still seeking work but who have expanded all of their unemployment benefits and are now "off the radar". Scary stuff! I wonder if the powers that be in the government have actually seen this, I think it may be an eye opener to some of them (general comment, not referring to anyone in particular).

Yikes! I wonder if it shows people forced into early retirement or ineligible for unemployment, as well.

[ParisApril]

I am in Canada and we Canadians are being encouraged to spend our way out of the recession Because we all know how well that worked for the US.

I really wish the Canadian Government had put all that stimulus money into green technologies, solar panels, windmills, high speed trains and the like. Sigh... they don't listen to people like me though.

Oh well we are adjusting our lives to live with little impact on the environment and frugally. Maybe our governments will catch on someday.

[HeatherAtHome]

Originally Posted by ParisApril

I am in Canada and we Canadians are being encouraged to spend our way out of the recession Because we all know how well that worked for the US.

Are we? I'm so out of the loop. I guess we did our part with buying a fixer upper and then spending money to try to fix it up. It was just the right time for us, that's all. We seem to be doing fine (knock on wood!)

[JollyGG]

I'm in the midwest. You will traditionally see a delay in the way we respond to economic trends. So what you will likely see is that we will be the last to see the worst but we will also be the last to see the best.

So it may not get as bad here, but odds are good that we won't recover as quickly as the rest of the country either.

Our lower cost of living is also a factor. I know for a fact that many businesses are attracted to the midwest for the cheaper work force. So as employers downsized many looked to relocating services to a cheaper area. So, for example my husbands company moved many of their operation to South Dakota so they could get the same computer programmer for cheaper.

[candipooh]

That is really scary and sad. We are feeling it right at home. DP was out of a job starting Feb. 2009. He was out of work for 7 months. He worked for 3 months and was again laid off. He is a licensed Journeyman Electrician. In a good economy this is a wonderful trade. Now it is just sad and scary.

This map just proves that if we move it will not improve our job situation.

You know....people that ARE hiring are taking advantage of the situation. They will pay WAY less that what a job is worth. They will fire people that has worked for them for YEARS because they know that they can hire someone who is desperate for a job and will take half the pay. Last year hubby got offered a job and his pay would have been over $100 less than what his unemployment check is. He went to a 'job fair' where the base needed about 60 civilian workers. The base expected two to three hundred people to show up. Over a thousand did.

Times are scary and I am very worried about my husband. We are able to scrape by on unemployment but every week that goes by with no job prospects his depression gets worse.

[Mommabean]

That has to be one of the saddest things I've seen lately!


I live in the middle, actually in Texas along the west.
It is all about OIL. There was a HUGE boom in late 2006 early 2007 that carried us until the spring of last year. So our unemployment rate were we were was under 3 percent!! So after the slump we never got that high because we had been so low before hand.