Questionable Unemployment numbers for Georgia

Dept of Labor ^ | 05/07/2010

[autumnraine]

According to the link, the non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Georgia in January 2010 is 10.6.

However if you go to the county map, there are counties with up 23% unemployment and only a handful under 10%.

Can someone tell me if I am looking at this incorrectly? It seems as if this unemployment rate of 10.6 for Jan is not correct. Both maps are using non-seasonally adjusted information.

Here is the map by state; http://data.bls.gov/map/servlet/map.servlet.MapToolServlet?survey=la&map=state&seasonal=u

Here is the map by county; http://data.bls.gov/map/servlet/map.servlet.MapToolServlet?state=13&datatype=unemployment&year=2010&period=M01&survey=la&map=county&seasonal=u

When you go to the link, be sure to change the month and year to reflect the same time period. It starts out in 2008 which is way different than today. If anything, that made me more depressed seeing the difference since then.

[autumnraine]

I have tried to average the counties out several times and do not come up with 10.6 as an average. But I may be doing this wrong and calling on Freepers to help.

Thanks!

[EagleUSA]

But, but, don’t you realize we are in a recovery???

** OBAMA SAYS SO !!!! **

[backhoe]

For whatever anecdotal evidence is worth?

My guess- from walking and talking on the street, here on the coast, is one in five out of work. Usually after going through several other jobs. Among young black folks? More like half out of work. It’s grim. And it’s not getting any better, either.

[doodad]

I am guessing much more. I know I am not the only guy on the street who is doing yard work during a weekday. And that was not the case recently.

[autumnraine]

Clickable links

State map:
http://data.bls.gov/map/servlet/map.servlet.MapToolServlet?survey=la&map=state&seasonal=u

County Map:
http://data.bls.gov/map/servlet/map.servlet.MapToolServlet?state=13&datatype=unemployment&year=2010&period=M01&survey=la&map=county&seasonal=u

[backhoe]

I am guessing much more.

I suspect you're right-- I've seen something recently I never saw before in any "downturn"-- destitute-looking people hanging out at the Wal-Mart entrance.

The couple with a dog got the most attention...

[kabar]

I assume that the number of unemployed by county varies. When you take the statewide total of unemployed, the number could and should be different than just averaging the rates by county. You are comparing apples to oranges.

[mwyounce]

Are you just adding all the counties’ rates and dividing by 159, or are you taking the population of the counties into account? Fulton County alone has about 1/10th of the state’s population, and the Metro Atlanta area is over half of the state’s population.

You can have high unemployment in the sparsely populated counties, and relatively lower unemployment in the Atlanta metro, and have the per capita unemployment be closer to the low end of the scale.

[The Sons of Liberty]

The figures don’t add up, because they were “adjusted”, and of course a large number of people have exhausted all benefits. Keep in mind that the guy who controls that is a dem running for Governor, so I wouldn’t believe anything coming out of his department.

[riverdawg]

You can't simply average the county unemployment rates to obtain the state unemployment rate, because counties in Georgia vary drastically in the size of their working-age population. For example, two of the counties with the highest unemployment rates are Atkinson and warren, which are very rural, small-population counties. You would have to weight the counties by their fraction of the state's total labor force, I think, and then take the weighted average.

[DrC]

“Metro Atlanta area is over half of the state’s population.”

I don’t know how Atlanta’s population is distributed, but know that it covers about 4 counties, including Gwinnet, whose UE rate is only 9.5%. Likewise, Savannah is located in Chatham County, with UE of 8.8%. Thus, it is not surprising that the population-weighted figure is much lower than the figure one would get by simply averaging rates across all the counties.

[wrench]

The government unemployment rat is nothing but a political tool to be manipulated for their own purposes.

It doesn’t include self employed or casual labor type workers.

The majority of workers in the residential building industry are not eligible for unemployment benifits, and thus are never considered “unemployed”.

More than half the small building contractors and laborers I know of are out of work as there is no activity in the residential building/remodeling industry.