AMERICA as a whole has just endured its sharpest recession since the 1930s, and the recovery is still fragile. But as our interactive map reveals, the pain has been spread very unevenly. The hardest-hit state, Nevada, has an unemployment rate more than three times as bad as that of North Dakota, the state that has done best on that measure. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, there is a close inverse correlation between growth rates and unemployment.
But what of politics? On the whole, the states with the worst unemployment levels tend to vote Democratic, and those with the best are in the Republican camp. Politicians will argue furiously about which way round the arrow of causation ought to run.
Interestingly, America's ethnic composition seems to have little consistent economic impact. States with large numbers of Hispanics (by far the fastest-growing ethnic group in America) include low-growth/high unemployment states like California and Nevada, as well as good performers like Texas and New Mexico.
The only thing stopping this from being a Depression is the frormal use of the word.
ReplyDeleteYou got that right!
ReplyDeleteI think the overall unemployment is a lot higher than reported. The way the government has played with the reporting methods has got to be questionable. It's sort of like when Bill Clinton was in the White House...he had all the crime rates re-classified and then some crimes went unreported...then you know the rest of the story...Clinton lowered the crime rates! Yeah, right!