Rachel C. sent in a video that shows changes in unemployment rates by U.S. county between January 2007 and May 2010, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Here’s a youtube version, but there’s a larger, less distorted version here:
Note that while the other colors all represent a range of 0.9% (say, from 2.0 to 2.9%), purple is a wider interval, from 7.0 to 9.9%, so there’s going to be more variation in unemployment rates in counties colored purple than those that are in the yellow or red range (but presumably less than gray, since that’s anything over 10.0%). Not sure why that particular interval division was used.
Depressing graphic, no?
Comments 5
Spekatie — August 6, 2010
Wow... as a recent graduate who is very unsuccessfully looking for a full-time job, I have to admit, this is not encouraging at all.
Even if I knew going into my masters that I was pursuing a degree which leads to very few employment opportunities, I never actually seriously thought that I would ever be unemployed for lack of available positions.
So... anybody needs a linguist? :P
DoctorJay — August 6, 2010
Amazing how it visualizes what we kinda knew, but never saw so dramatically.
I come in right at 01/09 in NYC. Freelance has been my only hope.
Mike Hout — August 10, 2010
This graphic is, as Gwen noted when she made the original posting, misleading because of the lack of detail in the upper range of the scale. It is very dramatic to see the country turn purple and gray. But there remains a lot of variation in unemployment out among counties that the broad 7.0-9.9 and 10+ categories hide. The closeness of the purple and gray color choices further damps down the variation that remains.
As for the plight of the well-educated, it is worse than anytime since 1982, but not nearly as bad as what people with less education are facing. Lack of education is a bigger factor in a person's risk of unemployment than geography. Last month, people without a high school diploma had a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 15.3% compared to 9.4% for high school graduates, 8.0% for people with some college, and 4.7% for people with college degrees.
The July 2010 numbers are at http://bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm.
Yu — August 15, 2010
I've also heard from a friend that some states are up to about 30% (Oregon for example). While that same friend also noted the average used to be between 3-5%(?), it would be interesting (and maybe more disheartening) to really see the extent of unemployment in the US right now.