The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the state-by-state unemployment statistics for August:
Regional and state unemployment rates were generally little changed in August. Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia reported over-
the-month unemployment rate increases, 16 states registered rate decreases, and 7 states had no rate change, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the year, jobless rates increased in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The national unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent in August, up 0.3 percentage point from July and 3.5 points from August 2008.In August, nonfarm payroll employment decreased in 42 states and the District of Columbia and increased in 8 states. The largest over-the-
month decrease in the level of employment occurred in Texas (-62,200), followed by Michigan (-42,900), Georgia (-35,000), and Ohio (-30,100). Hawaii and Michigan experienced the largest over-the-month percentage decreases in employment (-1.1 percent each), followed by Georgia and Mississippi (-0.9 percent each), North Dakota (-0.8 percent), and Alabama (-0.7 percent). The largest over-the-month increases in employment occurred in North Carolina (+7,000), Montana (+5,100), and West Virginia (+2,800). Montana (+1.2 percent) experienced the largest over-the-month percentage increase in employment, followed by West Virginia (+0.4 percent) and North Carolina (+0.2 percent). Over the year, nonfarm employment decreased in 49 states and increased in North Dakota and the District of Columbia. The largest over-the-year percentage decreases occurred in Michigan (-7.9 percent), Arizona (-7.4 percent), Nevada (-6.5
percent), and Georgia and Indiana (-6.0 percent each). The District of Columbia (+0.3 percent) and North Dakota (+0.2 percent) reported the only over-the-year percentage increases.
Here’s the clincher:
Fourteen states and the District of Columbia reported jobless rates of at least 10.0 percent in August. Michigan continued to have the highest unemployment rate among the states, 15.2 percent. Nevada recorded the next highest rate, 13.2 percent, followed by Rhode Island, 12.8 percent, and California and Oregon, 12.2 percent each. The rates in California, Nevada, and Rhode Island set new series highs. North Dakota again registered the lowest jobless rate, 4.3 percent in August, followed by South Dakota, 4.9 percent, and Nebraska, 5.0 percent. In total, 27 states posted jobless rates significantly lower than the U.S. figure of 9.7 percent, 11 states and the District of Columbia had measurably higher rates, and 12 states had rates that were not appreciably different from that of the nation.
When in the name of all that is holy will the imbecilic, self-serving popinjays in the Congress finally realize that the one-size-fits-all bureaucrat’s delights that they’ve enacted in the name of fiscal stimulus don’t address the actual problems that are apparent in the country and urgently in need of attention? Consider:
- The national unemployment rate has risen to 9.7%.
- 27 states saw unemployment rate increases or no change.
- 23 states registered unemployment rate decreases.
- One of the states, California, not only experienced a significant increase in unemployment, it already had an unemployment rate over 10%.
- One of the states whose unemployment rate decreased, Michigan, is probably experiencing a one-time blip, the product of the Cash for Clunkers program.
- Of the fourteen states with unemployments rates over 10%, three (California, Nevada, and Oregon) are in the West, four (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina) are in the South-East, and the remainder are splashed around the country.
- Of the states with very low (below 7%) rates of unemployment, all except Vermont and New Hampshire are Mid-Western or Mountain states.
To my eye this is a picture of regional economic problems which demand solutions tailored to regional conditions. The solution to Michigan’s economic problems are not likely to solve Oregon’s. That doesn’t mean that the federal government shouldn’t be involved; it should. But braindead approaches aren’t cutting it.
Hat tip: Bloomberg
When in the name of all that is holy will the imbecilic, self-serving popinjays in the Congress finally realize that the one-size-fits-all bureaucrat’s delights that they’ve enacted in the name of fiscal stimulus don’t address the actual problems that are apparent in the country and urgently in need of attention?
Are you referring to the same Congress that spread anti-terror money all over Montana, Idaho, Nebraska and other states Al Qaeda’s never heard of?
You persist in your hope that rationality might suddenly bust out in Washington. Some unheralded strain of Swiss optimism?
Yeah, I complained about that, too.
I’m in good company in my complaint. Fellow Missourian Sam Clemens wrote:
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Unemployment, both in the U.S. and the world as a whole, marches ever higher because the field of economics doesn’t account for the relationship between population density and per capita consumption.
Following the beating the field of economics took over the seeming failure of Malthus’ theory, economists adamantly refuse to ever again consider the effects of population growth. If they did, they might come to understand that once an optimum population density is breached, further over-crowding begins to erode per capita consumption and, consequently, per capita employment.
And these effects of an excessive population density are actually imported when a nation like the U.S. attempts to trade freely with other nations much more densely populated – nations like China, Japan, Germany, Korea and a host of others. The result is an automatic trade deficit and loss of jobs – tantamount to economic suicide.
Using 2006 data, an in-depth analysis reveals that, of our top twenty per capita trade deficits in manufactured goods (the trade deficit divided by the population of the country in question), eighteen are with nations much more densely populated than our own. Even more revealing, if the nations of the world are divided equally around the median population density, the U.S. had a trade surplus in manufactured goods of $17 billion with the half of nations below the median population density. With the half above the median, we had a $480 billion deficit!
If you‘re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, then I invite you to visit either of my web sites at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com or PeteMurphy.wordpress.com where you can read the preface, join in the blog discussion and, of course, buy the book if you like. (It’s also available at Amazon.com.)
Pete Murphy
Author, “Five Short Blasts”
Maybe we could develop a bomb – a neutron bomb sort of concept – that just sterilizes the population, but leaves everything else intact.
Happy days again in manufacturing.
I reflexively agree with your local solutions to local problems approach.
However, we must observe that local voters have put in local politicians who have implemented policies harmful to the local economies in Michigan, Ohio, California, Illinois etc….
I think that reforms in local policies are an essential part of the solutions to local problems, Drew.
these reports are a crock and i’ll tell you why………
#1 nobody i know with a high school diploma is out of a job.
#2 nobody who has developed their skills and talents before having babies is in country is in that much trouble.
so where is the breakdown of these statistics so i can minis that from the national rate to get the real unemployment rate less the stupid factor.
In the last 18 months the unemployment rate has doubled. The only areas “safe” are the agricultural states of the upper mid-west where there is little big-business manufacturing and less financial ‘institutions’. The consistency of this area is due to sparse population and little government dependence for hard-working, employed people. The insatiable greed of the top 5% has driven our manufacturing jobs overseas. The same thirst for wealth that has before, and will again, destroy the greatest society on earth.