map of the recession

[germdoc]

Interesting map of the recession:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...LEONHARDT.html

And click on "one-year change"--some counties have decreasing unemployment.

My county is up 1% from last year to 4.8%. Not too bad all in all.

Looks like the middle of the country is a pretty good place to be, also West Virginia. Not so trendy during the go-go 90's, but being hard-working, boring and tight-fisted does have its advantages...

[Ed62]

I don't think this is a big surprise. They're saying that local housing has not taken the hit in value that most of the nation has endured. Even so, it is still hard to sell a house.

Ed

[dbhost]

First off, I am NOT saying anything political here, but I found this very interesting...

http://www.270towin.com/

Not an exact match, but interesting to see how unemployment follows the red / blue map layout.

I keep pondering if I should delete this post... Please understand I am NOT trying to say anything political, I just noticed a STRONG similarity in voting behavior and the unemployment impact. I am NOT making any insinuation of cause and / or effect or anything like that, just noticing something odd.

[jackellis]

There appears to be a correlation. However, correlations say nothing about the underlying causes and correlations are not proof. All they do is invite inquiry.

[dmo]

It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that many of those hardest hit by the recession would place (atleast partial) blame on the party in power and seek a change.

[germdoc]

There is no doubt that in the last election many voters switched parties because of the effects of the recession, which generally punishes the party in power.

Moreover, a lot of the "boom towns" that participated in the housing bubble brought in a lot of new voters who tended to vote different from the prevailing patterns.

That's all I'm gonna say about the politics. Obviously unemployment will be worst where the population is the densest. Big cities in "red states", e.g., Atlanta, Houston, are hurt just as much as those in blue ones.

[dbhost]

There is no doubt that in the last election many voters switched parties because of the effects of the recession, which generally punishes the party in power.

Moreover, a lot of the "boom towns" that participated in the housing bubble brought in a lot of new voters who tended to vote different from the prevailing patterns.

That's all I'm gonna say about the politics. Obviously unemployment will be worst where the population is the densest. Big cities in "red states", e.g., Atlanta, Houston, are hurt just as much as those in blue ones.

Not sure about Atlanta, but Houston is still holding up okay, oil prices are depressed now which hurts, but there is still LOTS of work rebuilding from the hurricane to keep folks employed for a while...

[germdoc]

Not sure about Atlanta, but Houston is still holding up okay, oil prices are depressed now which hurts, but there is still LOTS of work rebuilding from the hurricane to keep folks employed for a while...

Well, unemployment in Harrisburg Cy. (Houston) is up 1.2% and in Fulton Cy. (Atlanta) it is up 3%. Not as bad as many areas, but there are a lot of pockets of major unemployment in the southeast, e.g., in FL. Anyway, I think this is pretty much independent of politics, except as noted above.

I just found out La Crosse is feeling the squeeze as well: http://www.lacrossetribune.com/artic.../14jobless.txt

[cwithboat]

Obviously unemployment will be worst where the population is the densest.

Right. Look at Alaska.

[Alex Franke]

Not an exact match, but interesting to see how unemployment follows the red / blue map layout.

Fun with Google Docs Here's a heat map shows above/below average unemployment on a state-by-state basis. I think it makes it easier to to compare with other state-level heat maps.

In the red/blue map, 22 (44%) are red, and 28 (56%) are blue.
In the unemployment map, 33 (66%) are lower, and 17 (34%) are higher (than average).

10 are both high and blue. 18 are low and blue.
7 are both high and red. 15 are low and red.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...nOEHe_Nw&gid=1

(BTW, I'm not going to interpret any of this stuff. I'm just trying to make both maps look a little more like apples... or maybe onions. Ugh. )

[Alex Franke]

but there is still LOTS of work rebuilding from the hurricane to keep folks employed for a while...

It's funny, I don't know if this is a good thing of a bad one. On one hand, I'm glad there are lots of jobs there, but on the other, it's the type of job you wish you didn't have to have!

But I wonder if there will be fewer volunteer trips out to the affected areas from other parts of the country. After the tech boom, when I left my job, I spent a lot of time volunteering at H4H, etc, and it seems like lots of others were as well. I wonder if people there will be doing that more locally... That combined with everyone's purse strings tightening elsewhere... It seems like fewer people from out of town will be able to afford to go volunteer, but that more people from in town might be compelled to.