No War But Class War

Yes, Billmon again. If he would stop writing such great stuff I'd stop linking to him all the time, you know.

I heart Jim Webb a little more now. Turning this boat around isn’t going to be easy but with leadership like his then the rudder wheel is being shifted – inch by precious inch.

Also, yesterday the unemployment figures for Michigan (and, probably, elsewhere) came out). I’m far from a statistician but even I can tell that my birth state’s drop from 7.1% to 6.9% is a good thing. In an economy with more than 4.5 million jobs that 0.2% is not a lot – and the figure’s been bouncing up and down between the two for months now, but it’s at the very least 10,000+ people who didn’t have jobs last month having a paycheck this one. Of course, I’m still no statistician but even I can tell that 6.9% is a lot bigger than 4.4%. That’s the national unemployment rate, I believe. And that 2.5% means about 100,000+ people not having work. In the state where Henry Ford came up with the $5 workday, they know what that means. So, inching forward in the right direction but still a ways to go, again.

Anyone know of a good resource for comparing employment figures on a state by state basis? I’d like to figure out just how much Michigan’s unemployment is dragging the national average down and others are propping it up, if I could. Of course, I’ll probably have to crack open a math book or two.