The "nation's economic engines", i.e. large metropolitan areas have had unemployment rate up more than 50% over the year in almost one-third of cities as of Novermber of last year. The cities make up 86% of U.S. employment and 90% of output, therefore cities were the first to feel the strong hit of job cuts and unemployment in general. The article believes the night is the darkest right before the dawn as it claims the economies of the urban areas will start improving in 2010, however, they will first witness the highest unemployment rate in the first quarter of this year.
The report from the United States Conference of Mayors showed that not all the regions were hit equally - the West, Southeast and Uppen Midwest happened to be the unfortunate ones with Michingan being in the lead (7 large cities in Michigan had highest unemployment rate) mainly due to real estate market problems and because those regions/cities are heavily dependent on the manufacturing sector.
This data is not surprising considering that there is generally an lag in unemployment to the rest of the economy. A firm has to be certain they are making a profit before they will feel stable enough to start investing money in new employees.
I agreed with the analysis that states should be investing stimulus money into cities. While this may seem unfair to people who do not live in the city, the government should be concerned with helping as many people as they can with the money given to them. In this case helping the most people means ranking which areas are most dire. My concern is that states will choose the most politically desirable approaches and not what is best for everyone.
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This data is not surprising considering that there is generally an lag in unemployment to the rest of the economy. A firm has to be certain they are making a profit before they will feel stable enough to start investing money in new employees.
I agreed with the analysis that states should be investing stimulus money into cities. While this may seem unfair to people who do not live in the city, the government should be concerned with helping as many people as they can with the money given to them. In this case helping the most people means ranking which areas are most dire. My concern is that states will choose the most politically desirable approaches and not what is best for everyone.
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