June’s Employment Numbers Highlight America’s Increasingly Distressed Communities

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Released: July 2010

Related Topics: Economic Security, Employment & Wages, Poverty, State & Local

Authors:

Adam Looney • Policy Director, The Hamilton Project; Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Michael Greenstone • Director, The Hamilton Project; 3M Professor of Environmental Economics, MIT; Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Introduction

June’s employment numbers highlight that our economic recovery is not yet on solid footing. An analysis by The Hamilton Project digs into the regional distribution of these unemployment trends and finds that, by one measure, the five hardest-hit states are Alabama, Delaware, Colorado, Georgia, and Utah.

In June, the economy lost 125,000 jobs, largely due to layoffs of temporary Census employees. In the private sector, employment increased by 83,000 jobs. Thus far this year, the economy has added 882,000 jobs, with 593,000 coming from the private sector. The unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent, but more Americans exited the labor force and the share of the population employed edged down.