I was looking at unemployment figures and seeing how different states were doing. I wasn't planning to do anything with it until I looked at Georgia's numbers. Like most states, Georgia's unemployment peaked around the end of 2009 and recovered slightly, but then started back up again at the end of 2010. It left me wondering if this was the sign of a double-dip recession, that we would see another peak in unemployment in the near future. So I made the following map:
Bright green - States that have shown continuous recovery since their peak in unemployment.
Dark green - States where unemployment is down from its peak, but there was little change in the last 6 months of 2010.
Gold - Unemployment peaked and has remained near that level.
Red - Unemployment continuously getting worse.
Dark Red - States that initially recovered, but unemployment has since gotten worse again.
Only two states, Georgia and Delaware, seem to show signs of a double-dip recession. As it stands, 26 states plus DC have shown continuous improvement since 2009. The Midwest is doing especially well, with unemployment rates falling much more rapidly in places like Illinois and Michigan than the national average. Michigan's unemployment rate was at 14%, but has fallen to 11%, lower than Nevada, California, Florida, and Rhode Island.
What's interesting with the dark green states in the Southeast is that they all show a similar pattern. They all peaked at around 11% unemployment, which quickly fell to about 10% and has stayed there ever since.
People have said that Colorado did well during the recession as when the nation as a whole was at 10%, Colorado was at 9%. However, the number show that while the nation is doing better, Colorado is still stuck at 9%.
The most worrisome sign is that three of the largest economies, California, Texas, and Florida, were worse off at the end of 2010 than they were in 2009. I'm also curious about Idaho and Montana given that all the surrounding states are doing fairly well.
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