This is the one year change in unemployment for May 2009. Some of it makes sense [Michigan and the Auto Industry]. But some of it escapes me. For example: Why are South Carolina and Alabama so much worse off than Mississippi and Georgia? I haven’t a clue…
Maybe it has to do with the use they made of the stimulus funds. At least we know that S.C.’s governor tried not to take them but was overruled by his legislature; but that probably delayed them being put into use. I don’t know if that also applied to Alabama.
It might also have to do with differences in how state governments managed their own dwindling resources, since there seems such a sharp difference in these states in the same region. In other parts of the country, it seems more regional with less sharp lines between the states. Well, Illinois does stand apart from Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin in the same way.
Still, it’s curious.