As can be seen in the figure below, Metro areas are in good shape regarding employment gains since the Great Recession, but Non-Metro (rural) areas are lagging behind, even 9 yrs after the end of the Great Recession though they have improved some. Employment in Non-Metro areas are still 2.4% below the pre-Great Recession values. In fact, the Metro Areas turned positive in 2014 and have been gaining since and now are 4.2% above the pre-Great Recession values. Note at the bottom of the Great Recession, the employment figures were pretty close, i.e. Metro areas were only a little better off than Non-Metro areas.
In 2016, Luzerne County, which had twice previously cast majorities for Obama, supported Trump 57.9 to 38.6 percent.
Similarly, in Defiance County in northwest Ohio, population 38,158, the unemployment rate rose from 5.3 percent in August 2007 to 5.9 percent in February 2017. The local labor force shrank over this period by 1,379 workers.
In 2016, Defiance became much more Republican than it had been: while voters there had supported Romney over Obama 55.5 to 42.2 percent, they supported Trump over Clinton 63.7 to 29.3 percent.
Compare Luzerne and Defiance counties to the Los Angeles-Glendale-Long Beach metropolitan area. There, not only did the unemployment rate fall from 5.6 percent in July 2007 to 4.8 percent in February 2017, but total employment grew from 4.68 million to 4.84 million.*
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| Employment Recovery: Metro vs Non-Metro Areas Comparison 1Q 2008 to subsequent years** |
In addition, college educated adults have fared much better than non-college educated. I presume that Metro areas tend to be more educated than non-Metro areas.**
Some 70% of respondents polled in October 2016 said they were either “living comfortably” or “doing okay,” up from 69% the year before, and 62% when the question was first posed in 2013, the Fed found in its latest Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (sic), released Friday.
Yet the share of respondents with no more than a high-school diploma who said they were “living comfortably” or “doing okay” declined last year to 60% from 61% in 2015.
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In another sign of the educational divide, 79% of those with at least a bachelor’s degree said they would still be able to pay all of their other bills in full if hit with a $400 charge. Just 52% of those with no more than a high school diploma said the same.**
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Still, the overall share of adults who would struggle to come up with $400 in a pinch has declined by 6 percentage points since 2013, indicating Americans’ financial situation is slowing getting better. While 25% of respondents reported skipping medical treatments due to cost in 2016, that was down 7 percentage points since 2013.
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Many respondents also reported that they lack retirement savings, with 28% of adults who haven’t retired yet indicating they had no retirement savings or pension whatsoever. That is down from 31% in 2015.**
I urge you to read the entire articles. Also see: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/04/economic-recovery-uneven.html
and
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/05/economy-roars-ahead-in-april-2017.html
* https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/opinion/reaching-out-to-the-voters-the-left-left-behind.html?_r=0
** https://www.wsj.com/articles/financial-health-improved-for-most-americans-in-recent-years-fed-survey-says-1495210829
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