Median Unemployment by State
By Barry Ritholtz - June 3rd, 2010, 11:30AM
Since tomorrow is the big NFP report, lets take a look at this EPI breakdown of Unemployment by State.
They note that “while the median duration of unemployment represents the typical job search, it also means that the wait is longer for half of all unemployed workers.” Hence, many of these workers will exhaust 26 weeks of unemployment insurance before landing a permanent new gig.
That has significant repercussions for consumer spending, foreclosures, etc.
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click for interactive chart
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June 3rd, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Is a top to bottom ranking with the median durations available?
The whole southeast is sucking eggs,even ahead of the rustbelt. I understand why FL is so bad but Georgia & The Carolinas too. The SC beach areas got overbuilt similar to FL I guess.
June 3rd, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Former Clinton administration secretary of labor Robert Reich has an excellent blog posting about the behind-the-headlines secular shifts in American labor trends resulting from (or on fast-forward as a result of) the great recession:
“Friday’s Job Numbers, And What They Won’t Tell Us About America’s Growing Anxious Class”:
url=http://robertreich.org/post/657110450/fridays-job-numbers-and-what-they-wont-tell-us-about/
June 3rd, 2010 at 1:39 pm
1. The ‘south’ will be back with the rebound of auto demand; prior to the Panic of 2008, the vast majority of NAFTA inward FDI, auto industry related, was in ‘bama, TN, MS, GA. Suppliers, like German Thyssen-Krupp, and the large truck cluster in NC took pretty bad hits.
We’ll see volume off from 16mm at peak, down below 9.5mm rebound, and so will ‘Detroit South’.
2. Bless Robt B. Reich, but the former Labor Sec. can’t get over his distaste for markets, risk taking, etc. He’s as predictable as Krugman, no?
June 3rd, 2010 at 2:19 pm
There won’t be a sustainable recovery without income redistribution. Highly stratified incomes mean uneven or weak domestic demand based upon puffing up asset values. And the credit card model is over. Once US business realizes that China and India are going to favor their own national champions, we might see a move to redistribute US incomes more evenly through various forms of legislation. This will probably take years to play out politically. In the meantime, Obama can wave his arms about an ‘export led recovery’.
June 3rd, 2010 at 2:40 pm
I can speak for the states of North Carolina and Alabama, as I’ve lived in both during boom and bust times.
N. Carolina’s largest metro is Charlotte, and some of the biggest employers there are BofA and Wachovia. NO surprise at all that unemployment is high in those places, as the economy of that metro was too heavily dependent on banks and financial sector. For Alabama, the largest metro, for now, is Birmingham, which had many years ago switched from a steel producer to guess what, banks and financial sector. Regions and others are based here, and have shrunk significantly. Right now in the Bham metro, unless you’re an RN, you just can’t find work.
So, take it for what it’s worth (not much), but the economic drivers of those two states were too heavily committed to high finance, and now high finance is a lot lower.
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:14 pm
How about near Vance, Alabama? Mercedes and vendors, not to mention Hyundai, German Steelmaker ThyssenKrupp seem to be in the biz of ‘making stuff’.
Income redistribution — that seems like the notion ‘can’t we all get along’; in a classroom, most young Americans want ‘egalitarian outcomes’ — until asked: Muppy worked hard, earned an A, Buppy worked so-so earned a B, and Cuppy really doesn’t know what end is up — shall Muppy and Buppy have points redistributed so Cuppy ‘can feel more equal’?
We then talk about income redistribution, etc. You know, ‘under Ghandism economic policy’, Indians were generally all quite poor. Under Prime Minister Singh, who was Finance Minister when India and the US under Pres. Clinton advanced India’s economic reform to more market based, who also has a Ph.D. in econ from Oxford, the middle class is growing……
India, with that leadership, and S. Korea, with a former CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, are getting nice GDP growth. Methinks their leadership trumps our president, actually quite a newby to economic policy.
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:34 pm
if Cuppy keeps his nose clean he can work in a prison feeding / walking Duppy to the showers .. 3x / once daily
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Thanks for the southern perspective – I forgot about the proliferation of foreign auto plants in the south. All of them non-union in the US but unionized back home (with national health care there to boot)
About the only thing we’re exporting is jobs and the weakening euro/strengthening dollar will only make that worse
June 3rd, 2010 at 8:58 pm
rktbrkr Says:
June 3rd, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Is a top to bottom ranking with the median durations available?
The whole southeast is sucking eggs,even ahead of the rustbelt. I understand why FL is so bad but Georgia & The Carolinas too. The SC beach areas got overbuilt similar to FL I guess.
———
The Carolinas got overbuilt, too. Not as bad as FLA, but most of the jobs there were Real Estate Dependent since the early 90′s where Resorts were being built, added to and folks from the Northeast started to buy second homes for retirement. Georgia Coastal Islands, Hilton Head and Kiawah, Seabrook, Wild Dunes, Pawley’s Island and Up the Coast in SC. NC came late to the party and will suffer the last but Real Estate and LAND Swaps were driving the Southeast Coast while the textile and other jobs were leaving the Upstate areas for China and Mexico.
Southeast did get some Toyota Plants (think about Toyota these days) and some Incentive Manufacturing but much of the “Incentive Manufacturing” has used their Tax Credits and Incentives from the States and now are moving “offshore” as well.
It’s sad that states gave huge Tax Incentives and Perks to these manufacturers who used them and are now leaving when they are needed the most.
The rest of the folks: Real Estate, Construction from Real Estate and the Lenders and the rest are now in deep trouble. If you can’t sell your primary home in Ohio …then how the heck are you going to retire to the SE? And, with the Oil Gusher spewing it’s stuff into the loop current…can you even be sure of renting your wonderful second home, condo in that Resort Area to anyone in the coming years…
It’s a very sad situation…