Iowa unemployment numbers are 6.0 ...locally it is 5.7%

[Peacetrain]

That is as of last week.

We are running 23% higher gross revenues in this month to the state.

As Gov. Rendell said this morning on GMJ..States are starting to look pretty good due to some great decisions made by people last year ..

Why am I putting this up here, when nationally we have a 9.0 % unemployment average, that has some states in double digits.

Because there are jobs.. and jobs that need advanced education.. we have even had unprecedented manufacturing growth for the last 7 months..

One of the biggest problems.. off the chart problems is the availability of jobs in job depressed areas.

If you live in a job depressed area, have no vehicle, how in the world are you supposed to find a job in the burbs or the next state?

Stimulus to grow companies in those areas would be a great step..but something that would work even quicker is ..PUBLIC TRANSPORT to companies .

We have to do some thinking outside the box here.

[Le Taz Hot]

1. I'm happy for Iowans

Locally, our unemployment just went DOWN to 17%.

[Peacetrain]

2. Oh Lord that is just so bad.. 17%...

How do we turn that around? I really think another stimulus addressing areas that are high unemployment areas that would get more jobs in there would be a good thing.. and not minimum wage jobs.. but jobs that people can make a living at.

We are still the largest manufacturing country in the world.. its not China or India.

But really good paying jobs.. jobs you can use to raise a family.. means extended education.

[dmallind]

3. Interesting

Having just moved to Evansville IN I was unsure about local numbers.

MSA is 6.9 down from 7.5 last month and 8.5 last year. State overall 8.1 from 8.8 and 10.4. Not much bettr than middle of the pack but definitely better than nationally.

[Peacetrain]

5. Good for Indiana..

I would really really love to see some stimulus hit employment deprived areas to have jobs available.

It is great for us... But as Taz said.. they are 17% unemployment in their area..which means jobs are not available there.

So using people movers to get people from areas of residence to areas where companies are hiring ..

I am all over these high speed rail plans. They can travel 200 miles an hour.

Building those rails are going to give us jobs..but it will also open employment depressed areas to where companies are.

To me that is a win win win situation.

And some of those gov. who turned down the high speed rail money are the ones who need it most for their people to get jobs.

[dmallind]

9. The spreads are amazing - in both ways.

Obviously like everyone else I have long known unemployment varies by area, but I have never looked at the whole list before and seen how widely and almost randomly it seems to vary.

Bismarck ND at 2.9 to El Centro CA at 27.9? One previous home of mine Lincoln NE at 3.8 and another, Detroit at 11.1? CA varies by 20% top to bottom? Certainly worker mobility must be part of it (and I don't think HSR is a viable answer given the other huge spread - between population centers, cool though it would be). I haven't seen any reports of the kind that brought workers to Detroit in the auto boom days or to CA in the dust bowl or the tech bubble, but I suspect that's because places like Lincoln and Bismarck are not dominated by single large industries, and job seekers are not exclusively one echelon either. I would imagine we will see a whole host of poulation shifts oncethis is settled.

[Peacetrain]

12. Yep.. that is a real possibility..

[blm]

4. It's worthwhile to be the state that helps determine who could be president.

TONS of dough being spent there.

[Peacetrain]

6. We are also the state that launched the President. But to your point.. our right

wing is as loopy as they get. Our right siders are going to launch Bachmann..

We have some of the most extreme people in the right residing here for just that reason.. so they can get their mark on the republican canidate.

There is a dark side to everything.

[mmonk]

7. Iowa is not the norm.

[Peacetrain]

8. Here are the regional stats:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm

Regional and state unemployment rates were generally little changed or slightly
lower in April. Thirty-nine states recorded unemployment rate decreases,
three states and the District of Columbia registered rate increases, and eight
states had no rate change, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Forty-six states and the District of Columbia posted unemployment rate decreases
from a year earlier, three states reported increases, and one state had no
change. The national jobless rate edged up by 0.2 percentage point between March
and April to 9.0 percent, but was 0.8 point lower than a year earlier.


Here is the thing.. we are headed in the right direction..but you get areas like mine with a 5.7 number and areas like Taz with a 17% number of unemployment.. what we need to concentrate on is how to get jobs to that area or get people from that area to where the jobs are.

High speed rail would help balance that out.. I am so glad we have that in the pipeline.. Those trains go over 200 miles an hour. Can you imagine.. You could live in what ever area you wanted to and be to your job a 100 miles away in an hour.

And Chris Christie turned that money down?

Wow not only did he turn down the jobs building the rail..but the jobs accessible to the people in NJ in other areas where work is.

[mmonk]

10. I believe in rail as well.

I do think, however, with all the budget cuts in new Republican legislature states, we are looking at a double dip.

[Peacetrain]

11. In my less than humble opinion..that is their whole plan and focus

to force a double dip so they can get back into office, now that we have staved off the full depression and continue to suck the American middle class and blue collar class dry like the vampires they are.

[liberal N proud]

13. A bright spot in this mess

As a native Iowan, glad to see it doing better than most.