Putting CA’s High Unemployment Rates in a National Perspective

The Washington Post offers an informative map of unemployment rates, by county, across the United States. On the Post’s map, take note, too, of the “autoplay changes” feature, a helpful visual tool that shows how the recession took hold across America from Jan. 2007 to Nov. 2009.

When you focus on California, you see some troubling signs. From Imperial County through the Inland Empire to the Central Valley and on up to the Oregon border, California’s middle is experiencing among the highest levels of unemployment in the United States. In Imperial County, in fact, the unemployment rate in January 2010 was a shocking 27%, which appears to be among the highest, if not the highest, percentages in the country. The connection between unemployment rates and kids’ well being is perhaps obvious, but this brief paragraph from kidsdata.org makes the point clear:

Not only can unemployment be a barrier to a family’s economic security, it also can place families under stress, affecting children’s emotional health and other aspects of their well being, such as access to health insurance. Children from low-income families are more likely to go hungry; reside in overcrowded or unstable housing; live in unsafe neighborhoods; and receive a poorer education. They also tend to have less access to health care, child care, and other community resources, such as quality after-school programs, sports, and extracurricular opportunities.

Tags: Data Projects

Posted by Andy Krackov

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 at 8:29 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.