When we hear that the unemployment rate is low and the economy is doing well, that’s not necessarily true in regional markets. The current 3.7% unemployment rate doesn’t really tell you what’s happening on the ground for many people and job markets. That’s a national average statistic. However, in some areas of California the rate is less that 2% and in other places it’s well above 6%. In Imperial County, it’s about 21%.

The above chart shows you the rates by county as of September 2019 in California. Most of the dark blue regions are between 5.8% and 7.6% percent. The only county higher than that is Imperial County at 20.7%. The next highest Rate is in the Central Valley county of Tulare, at 7.6%.

The lowest rates are in the San Francisco Bay Area, with San Mateo County at 1.7%, San Francisco at 1.8% and Marin at 1.9%. That’s one reason it’s hard to get people to work at low paying jobs in this area. Housing costs are extremely high, with wages that don’t support those high costs for many professionals.

If you look at a state like Mississippi, you see a different range of unemployment rates by County. The lowest unemployment rate in Mississippi is Rankin County at 4.1%, above the national average. The highest county unemployment rate is in Jefferson County, at 15.7%.

These unemployment rates are directly related to home costs. The more unemployment, the lower the housing prices. In low unemployment rates in some counties can drive up home prices, which push out lower income people and can make it hard to find employees for certain jobs, like teachers. Teachers work long hours and don’t want to add a long commute, especially if they also have a family.

Please feel free to leave a comment using the link at the top of the post, especially if you have some personal experience with these issues.

You can get more details and play around with the BLS mapping tool here: https://data.bls.gov/lausmap/showMap.jsp