Here are the latest jobs/unemployment statistics:
Nationally: 4.7% unemployment. Pretty nice, huh?
Ohio: 5.5% Hmm . . . not so nice. Worse: that's up from 5% last month.
Miami County (where Piqua is): 5.7% -- by the way, that's up 2/10ths from a year ago!
Montgomery County (where Dayton is, south of here): 5.9% -- fortunately, that's down.
Now, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services cheerfully says,
"The rise in Ohio's unemployment rate in April was the result of more people looking for work as job prospects improved," said ODJFS Director Barbara Riley. "While the unemployment rate increased last month, the increase in the number of people employed was the largest monthly increase since December 1999."
Back in the day, Governor Jim Rhodes (I'm not a fan) would say, the issue is "jobs, jobs, jobs!"
2 comments:
I am just old enough to remember Jim Rhodes. I doubt he would have governed the way Taft has in Ohio. I feel terribly sorry for Ohioans under the Bob Taft boot.
Fr. Fox:
I live in an area where the unemployment rate is quite close to the national average. Most of the long-term unemployed I know are in that position because they either have dropped out of the labor force altogether, for good reason, or refuse to be underemployed. Since I have to pay child support, neither option is open to me. As a result, I'm a PhD who works an average of 50 hours a week as a courier—a job that doesn't even require a college education.
That situation is rather common. I consider it a far worse problem for this country than unemployment.
Best,
Mike
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