The first chart shows the growth in the number of metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) that have an unemployment rate of 10% or higher. As of February there were a total of 104 MSAs with a 10% or greater unemployment rate. The second chart shows the change over the past year in the number of MSAs with a 15% or higher unemployment rate. Note that there are a total of 372 MSAs in the United States.
A few points:
1) Almost a third of the MSAs in the United States have a 10% or greater unemployment rate.
2) When you add in those individuals working part-time for economic reasons and those that want a job but have dropped out of the labor force the offical unemployment number roughly doubles. Accordingly, the real unemployment rate (or the suffering index, as I refer to it) for almost a third of the MSAs in the U.S. is roughly 20% or higher.
3) When the March data is released in a couple of weeks I expect the numbers in the above charts to increase.
Data Source:
> Bureau of Labor Statistics
================================================================================