Unhappy Anniversary: Illinois Overtakes California for Second Highest Unemployment Rate in Nation

The one state arguably more screwed up than California is Illinois.

Unions, union sympathizers, socialists, and tax-hike proponents are strongly in control of both states. Is it any wonder  that perpetual economic difficulties and insurmountable pension underfundings face both states?

Via email, Ted Dabrowski at the Illinois Policy Institute writes ...

Unhappy Anniversary

Six months ago, Illinois overtook California to become the state with the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation, behind only Nevada. It hasn’t budged since.

Last week’s release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics detailed yet another month of stalled unemployment numbers for Illinois. The state’s August unemployment rate remained at 9.2% — 1.9 percentage points above the national average, which fell to 7.3% in August.

Compared to its neighbors, Illinois fared even worse. The state’s unemployment rate is now a full 2 percentage points above its neighbors’ average, which fell to 7.2% from 7.3% one month earlier.

Illinois’ unemployment rate has remained above 9% since December of last year.

Illinois Unemployment Gap



The number of unemployed Illinoisans also remains high, at 602,000. This is the third month in a row the number of unemployed has remained above 600,000.

Illinois’ most recent U-6 unemployment rate is 16.1%, meaning more than 1 million Illinoisans are unemployed or underemployed.

Five years after the end of the Great Recession, Illinois still has an unemployment rate nearly 5 percentage points higher than its pre-recession average and there are 147,000 fewer Illinoisans in the labor force compared to August 2007.



The state is still missing 177,000 nonfarm payroll jobs compared to August 2007.

Six months of the second-highest unemployment rate is no anniversary to be proud of.

Ted Dabrowski

Inquiring minds should also take a look at Fiscal Crisis in Chicago: Pensions 31% Funded, Moody's Downgrades Debt 3 Notches, Pension Liability is $61,000 Per Household; Mish's Proposed Solutions

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com