Jobless rates are still rising, with states like Michigan and California reporting ranks of the unemployed exceeding ten percent for the first time since World War II. So how could things actually be slowly improving?
Looking at the NPR unemployment map, which organizes the May numbers released today state-by-state, the picture doesn’t look good. The entire Midwest is colored dark brown, meaning an unemployment rate of over 10%. The only states with any neutral or positive signs were Nebraska and Vermont.
But those official numbers are only for May – including statistics through last week in June, Patchwork Nation’s hardship index “uses key indicators – unemployment, foreclosures, and gasoline prices – to measure short-term changes in economic stress. Simply put, the index’s scores this month show some improvement,” Dante Chinni, the project director writes in a blog post this week. “The average U.S. score fell some seven points – from about 25 in May to roughly 18 in June.”
Marketplace’s Tamara Keith looks at unemployment insurance rates as an indicator of improvement, but warns that the good numbers we’re seeing this week really only mean things are getting “less bad.”
