West Virginia Blue
The Best Blogging Community in West Virginia Democratic politics, progressive policies, the good life and free living in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia.
It has only been in the last couple of years that stores gave actually referred to "Black Friday" in their post-Thanksgiving-sale ads... There was a time that they didn't really want you to know that it was the point on the fiscal calendar when they went into the Black...or started to earn a profit, as opposed to being in the Red, or losing money. Once upon a time the retailers did not want you to know how tenuous their existence was... it would be more like begging than selling.
May 2009 unemployment figures announced. Here are the numbers for West Virginia:
LABOR FORCE DATA LABOR FORCE DATA
NOT SEASONALLY ADJUSTED NOT SEASONALLY ADJUSTED
Table 1. Civilian labor force and unemployment by state and metropolitan area
(Numbers in thousands)
Unemployed
Civilian labor force
State and area Number Percent of labor force
April May April May April May
2008 2009 2008 2009p 2008 2009 2008 2009p 2008 2009 2008 2009p
West Virginia........................... 810.1 793.0 813.2 796.0 33.6 62.8 33.9 67.7 4.1 7.9 4.2 8.5
Charleston............................ 140.7 137.2 140.6 137.5 5.0 9.4 5.0 10.3 3.6 6.9 3.6 7.5
Huntington-Ashland.................... 132.2 131.4 132.3 132.4 5.8 9.7 6.5 10.6 4.4 7.4 4.9 8.0
Morgantown............................ 63.7 62.2 64.6 62.5 1.8 3.1 1.9 3.4 2.8 4.9 2.9 5.4
Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna........... 79.6 79.4 79.8 79.5 3.6 7.4 3.7 7.5 4.5 9.3 4.7 9.5
Wheeling.............................. 69.0 68.6 69.0 68.5 3.3 5.9 3.3 5.9 4.8 8.6 4.8 8.6
For all of West Virginia, 3,000 people joined the civilian labor force (May 2009 projected of 796,000 less April 2009 of 793,000) and the number unemployed rose 4,900 from 62,800 to 67,700.
Charleston (+ 0.6%), Huntington-Ashland (+ 0.6%) and Morgantown (+ 0.5%) all saw large single-month increases in unemployment--pacing the state overall gain of 0.6% to 8.5% unemployment.
The already hard-hit areas of Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna (0.2%) and Wheeling (unchanged) saw relatively small changes in unemployment compared to the rest of the state.
West Virginia has lost a lot of jobs in the past year. Here's a list of Unemployment Rates, by Metro Area that include WV. (The first number is the April, 2009 unemployment rate, the second is year-over-year change since April, 2008).
Metro Area State - April Jobless Rate - Change from April 2008
Weirton-Steubenville WV-OH 11.7% +6.1
Hagerstown-Martinsburg MD-WV 9.3% +4.7
Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna
WV-OH 9.2% +4.7
Wheeling WV-OH 8.6% +3.8
Winchester VA-WV 8% +4.5
Cumberland MD-WV 7.8% +3.1
Huntington-Ashland WV-KY-OH 7.4% +3
Charleston WV 6.8% +3.2
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria
DC-VA-MD-WV 5.6% +2.6
Morgantown WV 4.9% +2.1
Thing are tough all over, with the panhandles and other border regions especially hard hit. In the Eastern Panhandle only the core DC area still has relatively low unemployment, all of the exurb communities (those near Winchester, Hagerstown, Cumberland) have been hit much harder already.
I'd like to say "thanks" to President Obama and the Democratic Congress for my tax cut in the stimulus package. Yep, got my weekly paycheck yesterday afternoon, April 2, and there it was: an extra $20.
Now, my math's not on a Paul Krugman level, but it's probably in the ballpark with Eric Cantor's, John Boehner's and Shelley Moore Capito's, so it seems to me that my amount works out to the equivalent of damn near a thousand bucks a year.
I've been watching Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R - Texas) debating John Kerry (D - Massachusetts) debating the economic stimulus bill and it's related problems with bipartisanship on MEET THE PRESS. Needless to say, Kerry is pushing for jobs, education and infrastructure employment. Hutchinson is pushing for tax cuts, of course, and is threatening another 100% Republican pullout. What stuck in my mind, however, was her statement that the Infrastructure has been well-funded so far and is not a problem.
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