Jobless rate in Western US tops 10 percent

Jobless rate in Western US tops 10 percent in May, first time since 1983; 8 states set records

• <LI class=byline>By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer
• On Friday June 19, 2009, 6:39 pm EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The housing bust sent the unemployment rate in the West bolting past 10 percent in May -- the first time in more than 25 years that a region of the United States has suffered double-digit joblessness.


A Labor Department report released Friday showed the West absorbing the worst of the recession, which is now the longest since World War II. California, Nevada and Oregon endured particularly heavy job losses in construction, manufacturing and tourism.

The region has been pounded because it was the epicenter of the housing boom that collapsed. As home values plummeted, the West lost jobs and wealth, and consumers grew skittish about spending.

"The West is where houses are being abandoned most quickly because it has the largest percentage of the population under water -- owing more on their houses than they're worth," said Robert Reich, labor secretary under President Bill Clinton and now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "They lose their capacity to borrow. All of that means that they can't buy very much."

The West reported the highest regional jobless rate for May: 10.1 percent. The last time any region had an unemployment rate of at least 10 percent was in September 1983, when the economy was emerging from a severe recession.

The region's problems also go beyond housing. Cutbacks on businesses travel are hitting hard in Arizona and Nevada.
"It's difficult to keep major projects going -- like casinos -- in Las Vegas.

That's pretty much come to a halt," said Steve Cochrane, managing director at Moody's Economy.com.

In California, the jobless rate jumped to 11.5 percent last month. In Nevada, it rose to 11.3 percent, and in Oregon, to 12.4 percent. All three figures were records, based on documentation going back to 1976.

In Oregon, makers of plywood, window sashes and doors have suffered from reduced demand. The state also has lost jobs in high-tech industries and at factories that make heavy trucks and recreational vehicles.

At a training center in a blue-collar Portland neighborhood, 36-year-old construction worker Michael Clark said he lost a job with a property management company in December.

"When I was laid off 2 1/2 years ago, you could mail out resumes, and you'd be getting four, five calls a week, and they'd be hiring," Clark said. These days, he said, the response is, "Thanks for your interest." And then silence.

Even as jobs have vanished, people who find Oregon a desirable destination keep moving into the state, and those already there are hesitant to leave, state labor economists say. That means more competition among job seekers for the few positions that come available.

In addition, many Oregon households that once had a single earner now have two people seeking work as spouses of laid-off workers have entered the labor market. And analysts say retirees seeking to replenish their shrunken 401(k) accounts are re-entering the work force, too.

What's more, hard-to-get credit has cooled once-hot real estate markets in the Portland area and in central Oregon, where the sunny desert climate has long attracted retirees from rainier parts of the Northwest and people cashing out of pricey California homes.

In Arizona, which along with Florida suffered the largest percentage drop in jobs last month, the losses were spread across many industries, including health care and government, said Marshall Vest, director of the University of Arizona's Economic and Business Research Center.

After the West, the Midwest had the second-highest unemployment rate, at 9.8 percent. The South's jobless rate was 8.9 percent. The Northeast had the lowest, 8.3 percent.

The government report showed employment conditions deteriorating in 48 states and the District of Columbia last month.

Michigan, the heart of the sinking auto industry, had the highest unemployment rate: 14.1 percent.

Eight states had record-high jobless rates. Only two -- Nebraska and Vermont -- reported no increases. Nebraska's jobless rate dipped, and Vermont's was flat.

The five other states that set new unemployment highs were North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia.

After Arizona and Florida, the next-largest percentage drop in jobs last month was Oklahoma, followed by Arkansas, Kentucky and Michigan.

Nationwide, the jobless rate stands at a quarter-century high of 9.4 percent. Analysts say companies are unlikely to ramp up hiring until they feel sure their sales are rebounding and that any economic recovery will have staying power.

Some economists say the nation's jobless rate could rise as high as 11 percent by the summer of next year before it starts a slow descent. The highest rate since World War II was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982.

North Dakota and Nebraska reported the lowest unemployment rates: 4.4 percent each. North Dakota has been helped by the oil business. Nebraska has been supported by farm businesses.
Neither state ever got carried away by the housing boom, either, so they never suffered huge hits to household wealth.

Nebraska also has benefited from the relative strength of two of its main industries: agriculture and food-production.

Associated Press writers Tim Fought in Portland, Ore., Evelyn Nieves in San Francisco, Arthur Rotstein in Tucson, Ariz., and Josh Funk in Omaha, Neb., contributed to this report.

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

Gotta love the Obama Defense.

Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow who studies public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute, writes a weekly column for Forbes.

Is It Obama's Economy Now? - Forbes.com

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Screw organized crime. Grow yer own damn weed!



Don't Talk to Police

Proud member of NORML

where's my check?

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i'm the guy i've always wanted to be

It's in the mail...?

What is ironic is he's pursuing the same policies that created the last two busts.

Cheap credit, and bubbles.

The fact of the matter is that he should be tried for treason, or at the very least criminal negligence. Any one with any desire to be part of the informed electorate can see that the United States has been trying to same policies since FDR, and they have never worked.

Ever since the surrendering of control to the Federal Reserve, and the theft of the public's gold by those greedy banksters with the cooperation of incompetent politicians the United States has tried to solve its problems by imaginary money. Seeking to rob the people of the value of their savings by inflating the monetary supply.

The other tactic is continued expansion of government payroll and government hand outs, which do not work, because it ignores the fact that it is the private sector that funds government. Government, and public spending do not a lasting solution make.

The approach of inflation robs people of their savings and will ultimately create another recession regardless of the false appearances of a recovery. It is a policy of socialists and proponents of big government who are demonstrating that they still believe you can make the pie bigger by dividing it more and more finely.

The approach of expanding government power and regulation adds expenses onto operating in the economy which will do nothing but prolong the recession. The expenses of compliance with onerous legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley deprives corporations of money that they could use to try competing in a harsher economy.

The continued theft from the private sector to fund the public sector is unsustainable and leads nothing but to fake recoveries that collapse in upon themselves once the government stops increasing the level of its theft through inflation, regulation or taxation, and attempting to continuously increase all three will only hasten the next collapse.

No, the best solution is for the government to step out of the markets all together, cut regulation exempting tighter enforcement of anti-trust laws. The government should not have to defend companies that are "too big too fail" as that means that they are in truth too big to exist and are nothing more than abusive government-backed monopolies, or worse, like in the case of GM and Chrysler where they are abusive government-controlled monopolies.

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Libertas inaestimabilis res est - Liberty is a thing beyond all price. | Sic Semper Tyrannis

unless you are a banker or a billionaire you are going to get the BILL for 180K dollars your new commander and thief just spent per family in the last six months.

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everything i print write or show on here is a complete and utter lie..i cant help myself i am a terminal liar..all of this shit is just fiction and made up for entertainment purposes ONLY..

well i voted for a check.

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i'm the guy i've always wanted to be

as Gerald Celente said, "the stimulus bills are just creating the stimulus bubble, which is bigger than the real estate bubble and bigger than the dot com bubble. When it bursts, we'll really see this whole thing start to tumble and collapse....throwing money at this problem has NEVER worked in all of history because it's designed not to work. It's designed to make the central banks consolidate little banks and make them richer"

when you throw nearly 13 trillion into the system, tripling the amount that was already there, you can expect your dollars to be worthless....and as our dollars begin to buy less necessities due to hyperinflation, watch the Fed RAISE interest rates again to suck it all back in. shit is gonna get REAL FUCKIN UGLY in this country


And by the way (i've looked into this)....when you include...

A. part time workers who've had their hours cut back from full time and
B. people who've become discouraged and stopped LOOKING for jobs...

the nation-wide unemployment rate is about 17-18%

(40 million Americans are on FOOD stamps for christ's sake)

All tactics and such designed for the government to mask the problem as much as they can. I mean Ben Bernanke, head chairman of the Fed, said we'd see the economy turn around completely this summer...LOL! he needs to be shot in the fucking face

I think when christmas retail sales come in, they REALLY won't be able to hide the true state of the economy from the public anymore.

Got mine already, thanks Obama. There is something good about direct deposit.

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

i'm calling my bank.

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i'm the guy i've always wanted to be