Alabama is enjoying a period of great economic success.
We can see this most clearly by looking at the unemployment rate, which in October 2006 reached a record low and continues to rank among the best in the country.
The unemployment rate compares the number of unemployed persons to the total number of people in the state’s work force.
According to the most recent federal statistics, only 13 other states have unemployment rates lower than Alabama. Only four of these have been consistently lower during the past three months.
Alabama has 2.2 million workers. About 80,000 were unemployed in December 2006, an unemployment rate of 36 per 1,000 workers, or 3.6 percent. The nationwide unemployment rate was 4.5 percent.
In terms of producing jobs for its work force, therefore, Alabama currently ranks 14th among all states and is beating the national average by 20 percent.
Putting this success in human terms, almost 21,000 Alabamians are working who would be without jobs if our economy were performing “only” at the national average.
The only Southeastern state with a lower unemployment rate than Alabama’s 36 per 1,000 was Florida, at 33. The number of unemployed per 1,000 workers was 43 in Louisiana, 46 in Georgia, 47 in Tennessee, 49 in North Carolina, 51 in Arkansas, 52 in Kentucky, 66 in South Carolina and 75 in Mississippi.
Alabama’s success in producing jobs is not recent. For 65 consecutive months since August 2001, Alabama’s unemployment rate has been better than the national average.
Only 20 of Alabama’s 67 counties had December unemployment rates above the national average.
The five counties with the highest unemployment rates are located in the “Black Belt,” an area in southern Alabama, named for its rich soils, that has been the most impoverished part of the state for many years.
They included Lowndes, Dallas, Perry, Wilcox and Bullock counties. Bullock County had the highest unemployment rate in the state, at 84 per 1,000 workers.
A key benefit of low unemployment is that it leads to growth in personal income. Next month, we will discuss how personal income in Alabama is climbing toward the national average.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Jim Williams is the executive director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama.
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