Unemployment by state

[jimrtex]

Can any of our western posters explain why eastern OR is having such problems compared to neighboring ID?

Owyhee County is in the county in SW Idaho.  It has 10,000 people which is extremely concentrated in its NW tip along the Oregon border, plus elsewhere along its northern border which is formed by the Snake River.  Boise is among the counties just to the north (Boise is among the most extremely towards the edge capitals in the USA).

Owyhee County had 27% growth in the 1990s so I suspect that it getting some outgrowth from Boise, probably more exurban, which shows up because of the small base population.   It appears primarily agricultural, but again that will be concentrated along the Snake River where you can get some irrigation.  There is also a reservoir in the eastern part of the county (on the Snake).  You might not have enough water for cattle in the rest of the county, perhaps sheep.  But you're north of Nevada.

I suspect that Boise (and Nampa), etc. help keep the unemployment in Owyhee County down.  45 people is 1% of the labor force.  If you don't have a job, you're going to figure out pretty quick that you are not going to have a job for a long time.  There may be a lot of Mormans as well (pretty high concentration of children).

Malheur County is the big county in SW Oregon.  The Snake river dips a few miles into Oregon and then forms the western border of Idaho clear up to Washington.  North of Malheur County is Hells Canyon (Grand Canyon of the Snake), but in the area where the river turns north is a continuation of the agricultural area around Boise-Nampa.  Malheur County has about 30,000 people, with most concentrated in the extreme NW corner with 10,000 in Ontario.  I would expect it to have a similar economy to Owyhee County, but Ontario appears large enough to support a small service/professional sector who may be a little less willing to take "a job".  And it is a bit further from Boise.  Most of Malheur County is on Mountain Time, to match Boise rather than Portland.

Further west in Oregon you are into ranching areas until you get to the Cascades where lumbering will be the base of the economy.

So on a large scale basis you are comparing metropolitan Boise to a ranching area.  And between Owyhee and Malheur counties, it may just be the ability to get a few more jobs in adjacent counties.

[jimrtex]

Does anyone know if the actual ground-level data collection is done by the BLS or whether it's some state agencies that theoretically use the same methodology but maybe, in fact, don't? A few of the state lines on the map seem a little suspicious:
- NW Illinois vs. SW Wisconsin & E Iowa, even the manufacturing-heavy parts of the latter two
- E Kentucky vs. S West Virginia
- N Alabama vs. all its neighbors (I mean, Huntsville aircraft/defence will account for some of this, but such a big difference right at the state lines?
- the horizontal line between Mississippi & Louisiana

BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics -Estimation Methodology

The national unemployment rate is based on the Current Population Survey which is conducted for the BLS by the Census Bureau.  It is based on 50,000 households surveyed monthly.  I think that it is a sliding sample, with new housing units added each month, and old ones removed.  My sister used to be a surveyor, and she had to collect data each month.  In one case, a house had burned down, and she had to go check each month to confirm that no one lived there.  The advantage of the CPS is that it provides a better measure of the population, including those who are employed; vs. unemployment claims.

At one time the unemployment rate for large states was based on the CPS, but no longer.  And the CPS is too small for small areas.  In a county of 200,000 it would only amount to about 30 people.   To the extent I understand the above, it is based on a state unemployment claims, and also state-based employment models, and then controlled to the CPS.

Some of the areas you mentioned might be legit.

The Tennessee River dips into Alabama between Georgia and Mississippi, so that there is little east-west effect.   Chattanooga is offset a little to the east of the AL/GA border and it appears to be red rather than purple.  The whole swath trhough Alabama looks questionable but it sort of follows the cities Huntsville-Gadsden-Birmingham-Tuscaloosa-Mobile-Dothan.   Mobile is also low.  So perhaps there is something odd about Alabama's model for cities.

There is more coal mining in West Virginia than Kentucky.  If a mine shuts down, the people are going to move.  You can't collect unemployment for years, waiting for a mine to re-open.  If a mine does open, people will move back.

Much of the Louisiana area is suburban New Orleans, and could actually be seeing more growth because it didn't get flooded much.  There are actually a few counties right on the border that look more like SW Mississippi which has no cities.  Further west, you are in Baton Rouge which has had a big increase in population post-Katrina.