Southern Slump

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Deep Recession Sharply Altered U.S. Jobless Map,” provides some sobering news for the once-booming “bible belt,” accustomed to attracting people from other areas of the country due to its growing economy. It appears that the South has suffered disproportionately to the rest of the country and is slower to recover as well.

Apparently, areas used to rapid influxes of population and the concurrent prosperity from the construction and housing industry have been hurt the most when the housing bubble burst. For example, South Carolina now has the fourth highest unemployment rate in the entire country. Other temperate states such as Nevada, Arizona and California have been significantly hurt as well.

The areas relying on healthcare, education or energy production have been less hurt by the recession and even the “Rust Belt” is starting to recover due to a renaissance in the auto industry. The long-term effects of the uneven state economies remains to be seen, but in the end, people will move to where the jobs are, and if they are no longer in the South, that will affect the population booms that have been supporting those economies as well.

Of course, no place is doing particularly well. Of 100 metropolitan areas, only 16 have recovered more than half of the jobs lost during the recession.