4 States See Double-Digit Jobless Rates In January

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

(03-11) 08:17 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

Four states — California, South Carolina, Michigan and Rhode Island — registered double-digit unemployment rates in January, a trend likely to be seen on the national level by year-end.

The U.S. Labor Department's report on state unemployment, released Wednesday, showed the increasing damage inflicted on workers and companies from a recession, now in its second year. Some economists now predict the U.S. unemployment rate will hit 10 percent by year-end, and peak at 11 percent or higher by the middle of 2010.

In December, only Michigan had a double-digit jobless rate. One month later, four states did and that doesn't count Puerto Rico, which saw its unemployment rate actually dip to 13 percent in January, from 13.5 percent in December.

California's unemployment rate jumped to 10.1 percent in January, from 8.7 percent in December, as jobs have disappeared in the construction, finance and retail industries.

Michigan's jobless rate jumped to 11.6 percent in January, the highest in the country. The second-highest jobless rate was South Carolina at 10.4 percent. Rhode Island was next at 10.3 percent, which marked an all-time high for the state in federal records dating to 1976. California rounded out the top four.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/11/national/w072930D34.DTL

[nxylas]

1. In other news...

...South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is the first governor to officially reject stimulus money. Mark Sanford: Keeping his state in poverty so that Republicans will vote for him in 2012.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. Oregon is at 9.9... and we know the numbers are fudged...

so make that at least 5 states. :(

[tclambert]

3. The official 9.9 rate for Oregon is based on U-3. U-6 is larger and often called the real rate.

They say U-6 is usually 2 to 3 percent higher than U-3, but it seems like quite a bit more lately. For instance, for the country, February's U-3, the official unemployment rate, was 8.1%, but U-6 was 14.8%. (Damn, that's high.)

* U-1: Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force
* U-2: Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force
* U-3: Total unemployed persons, as a percent of the civilian labor force (the official unemployment rate)
* U-4: Total unemployed persons plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers
* U-5: Total unemployed persons, plus discouraged workers, plus all other "marginally attached" workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all "marginally attached" workers
* U-6: Total unemployed persons, plus all "marginally attached" workers, plus all persons employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all "marginally attached" workers

See http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2008/jul/wk1/art05.htm for more. (That's the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.)

[pinqy]

4. Sort of kind of..the state rate is not based off of the National rate...

..but the National levels are used to derive the State levels (and then the rate) with Unemployment Insurance claims for the state being the starting point.

The concepts used are the same, if that's what you meant.

[tclambert]

6. U-3 for the state vs. U-6 for the state is what I meant,

Yeah, same concepts. It's BLS publishing both state and national numbers. I'm sure they're using the same definition for "official unemployment rate" (= U-3). I can't find Oregon's U-6 listed. It could be around 16%.

[pinqy]

7. alternative measures aren't calculated for the states

It's tricky enough as it is...adding in that level of detail would make the numbers useless with too much (statistical) bias and error. In February, the number of "marginally attached" was around 2 million (not seasonally adjusted)*. That's National. Trying to figure that out at the State level? Huge margin of error.

The U6 just isn't a very useful number anyway...it's far too subjective ("marginally attached" and "part-time for economic reasons" are based on what people say they want rather than what they're actually doing) and it's too hard to tell if month-to-month changes are meaningful. The current U4 is the closest to the definition before 1967 and the U3 is the definition (with one, maybe two minor differences) used since then.


*BLS

[burf]

5. In a related story:

7 states post jobless rates above 10%

Michigan was saddled with the nation's highest jobless rate in January, 12.5 percent in statistics that were not seasonally adjusted. It had been the only state to rise above 10 percent during the previous month, December 2008.

Also topping the 10-percent mark in January were Rhode Island (11.4 percent unemployment), Oregon (10.9 percent), South Carolina (10.9 percent), California (10.6 percent), North Carolina (10.3 percent) and Nevada (10.2 percent).

Link: http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2009/03/09/daily30.html?jst=b_ln_hl

The news is getting worse by the day.