The Foundation for Economic Education looks at the 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates, and the 11 with the highest unemployment rates (10 states + DC). FEE asks the question, what key things do each group have in common?
With rates between 2.3% and 3.7%, the group with low unemployment includes NB, UT, NH, SD, ID, VT, AL, OK, MT and GA.
Many different factors influence unemployment rates, but there’s one glaring thing these 10 states all have in common: Republican governors. Generalizing, GOP-led states had lighter government lockdowns on their economies and reopened sooner.
The high unemployment group, with rates between 6.6% and 7.7%, includes AZ, LA, PA, DC, IL, HI, NJ, CA, NM, NY, and NV.
With the exception of Arizona, these states struggling with high unemployment all have Democratic governors (or mayor, in the case of DC). Generally speaking, they had longer and harsher government restrictions on their economies than the top 10 states. And, except for Arizona, all of these bottom-ranking states continued to offer residents expanded payouts to stay on unemployment benefits.
In this latter group, several states reliant on tourism (NV, HI, AZ) have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic making travel risky. Hat tip to Ed Driscoll, posting at Instapundit, for the link.
