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About "True" Unemployment

charles@politicalarithmetik.com (Charles Franklin) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:03:02 -0500

by Charles Franklin

Today's unemployment rate was announced as 9.7%. But some articles mention a "true" unemployment rate of 16.8%. How can both numbers coexist, and which is "really true"?

This is a lengthy, technical post, so here is the conclusion:

As a matter of compassion for people who would like to work more, U6 may be a more inclusive measure, but as a matter of statistical information, as a matter of understanding the economic (and political) implications of unemployment, there is no advantage in choosing anything other than the official unemployment rate, U3. Calling U6 the "true" or "real" unemployment is misleading and a disservice to readers and listeners. It is a claim of added value when in fact there is none.

Now the details:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics produces an official unemployment statistic each month, known as U3. The BLS also produces five alternative measures of unemployment, U1, U2, U4, U5 and U6. U1 and U2 are narrower measures of long-term (over 15 weeks) and new job losses. U4-U6 are alternative measures including discouraged, marginally attached to the labor force and part-time workers who would prefer more hours. (See the BLS data here.)

As unemployment rises, the rates for marginal and part time workers also increases, and runs considerably above the official unemployment rate. The key difference is that discouraged and marginal workers are both not working and not looking for work but have looked in the last 12 months and say they would like to work. (Discouraged is a subset of marginal, with the addition that they cite a job-market related reason for not seeking work.) The part-time worker category includes currently employed people who want and are available for full time work but who have had to settle for part time employment.

Some news sources refer to U6, which includes both marginal and part-time workers as the "true" or "real" unemployment level. NPR has done so here and here and here and here. And the Washington Post's Frank Ahrens' Economy Watch Blog has had quite a bit to say about this including, here and here.

But in what sense is U6 more "true" than U5 or the official U3? One can certainly make a case that discouraged workers are unemployed, would like to work, but so disheartened they've given up. A slightly weaker case can be made for the marginal workers. But those two together only add modestly to the official unemployment rate, as you can see in the chart above. Where the big jump comes is among part-time employees, who are added to the mix in U6.

So is U6 a better measure? It certainly matters that 16.8% of potential workers would like more hours (or a job of any kind) compared to the 9.7% who are without jobs and actively looking. But if you are going to adopt U6 as your standard, you need to realize that even during the "full employment" of the late 1990s to 2000, when unemployment (i.e. U3) fell to just 3.8%, U6 still stood at 6.9%, 1.8 times higher. Of course a booming economy provides more full time job opportunities, but even the hottest economy of recent decades did not bring U6 below the 7-8 point range.

Since 1994 (when current unemployment measures were adopted) U6 has averaged 1.76 times the U3 rate. Today's ratio stands at 1.73, essentially the same as the historical average.

Today's Frank Ahren's Economy Watch entry points to the gap between U6 and U3, and links to an earlier post on that gap. Let's look at that gap, but also compare it to the ratio of U6 to U3:

Ahrens focuses on the difference, which has risen lately while ignoring the ratio which has fallen over the last year, and is down from pre-recession levels. U6 rises faster than U3, with U6 increasing by about 1.7 points for each 1 point increase in U3. That means the gap between them has to rise when U3 is large, as it certainly is today. But the relative rates of U6 and U3 are the ratio, and that has fallen recently. If you want to make the case that unemployment is "really" worse than it looks (based on U3) then U6 and the gap make a good case. But if you want to know if U6 is abnormally large given the current official unemployment of 9.7%, then the ratio is a more reasonable measure, and by that it doesn't look unusually large, and in fact is slightly below historical expectations.

That doesn't answer the "truthiness" question, but it does seem to say that U6 isn't really telling us much we wouldn't have expected from U3 and the historical relationship. And that is the key point. Does U6 add information not available in U3? If we adopted U6, we'd have a higher rate always, but would it tell us something different from U3? Not very much at all. In the top chart, I include the correlation between U3 and U6. It is a near perfect 0.992 since 1994. That means there is only the tiniest bit of independent variation between the two series. They move up and down in near-lock-step, as is apparent just from looking at the chart. The "truth" of U6 is never much different from what we'd expect based on U3. Since 1994, U6 has never been as much as 3/4 of a percentage point different from what we'd have predicted based on U3. Of course it contains more people (by definition it is a super-set of the official unemployed) but it doesn't vary differently over time than does U3. In short, there is virtually no added information.

We can take another peak at alternative unemployment measures, this time at the state level annually since 2005.

Here you see the rise of unemployment nationally as you read the columns right-to-left. What was a small cluster of low unemployment in the lower left corner of the 2005 column has become a wide spread throughout the plot in the 2009 column. Both U3 and each of the alternative unemployment measures have increased, which is obvious. But the relationship between the measures have remained quite stable, with correlations between .86 and .99.

For our current interest, U6 and U3 correlate each year at the state level between .95 and .96, again leaving very little room for more information to be extracted from the U6 measure.

As a matter of compassion for people who would like to work more, U6 may be a more inclusive measure, but as a matter of statistical information, as a matter of understanding the economic (and political) implications of unemployment, there is no advantage in choosing anything other than the official unemployment rate, U3. Calling U6 the "true" or "real" unemployment is misleading and a disservice to readers and listeners. It is a claim of added value when in fact there is none.

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Unemployment Holds at 9.7%

charles@politicalarithmetik.com (Charles Franklin) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:28:15 -0500

by Charles Franklin

The national unemployment rate held steady in February at 9.7%, stubbornly down from the high of 10.1% in October and stubbornly refusing to decline from January's 9.7%. The White House has stressed storms but until we see the rate move down again, such talk is convincing only to economists and geeks. (State unemployment for January will be out March 10.)

Let's note the rate since President Obama took office,

Feb 09: 8.2%
Mar 09: 8.6%
Apr 09: 8.9%
May 09: 9.4%
Jun 09: 9.5%
July 09: 9.4%
Aug 09: 9.7%
Sep 09: 9.8%
Oct 09: 10.1%
Nov 09: 10.0%
Dec 09: 10.0%
Jan 10: 9.7%
Feb 10: 9.7%

12 month change: +1.5%

6 month change: 0.0%

4 month change: -0.4%

1 month change: 0.0%

There is enough there to argue about.

On the bright side for the administration is the first revision of 4th quarter real GDP, which was moved up from 5.7% to 5.9% growth. That is the number to watch as a better indicator of future growth and unemployment trends. If the economy continues to expand at this rate in the 1st and 2nd quarters economic optimism is likely to rise even with a lagging and gradual decline in unemployment. Third quarter growth was, in contrast, revised downward from initial estimates to an eventual 2.2% growth. For comparison, 1st and 2nd quarters were -6.4% and -0.7% respectively. For the year, 2009 was terrible, a decline of -2.4%, compared to +0.4% in 2008 and +2.1% in 2007.

Now we enter the 2010 campaign year with upward GDP movement for the second half of 2009 but climbing from a deep bottom of the recession. The stage is set for a narrative of recovery, but that narrative remains obscured by a stubborn unemployment rate and a preoccupation with an unpopular health care bill.

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Texas Primary: Message Success, Message Failure

charles@politicalarithmetik.com (Charles Franklin) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:52:33 -0500

by Charles Franklin

The Texas GOP primary for governor is a lesson in both message success and message failure. Gov. Rick Perry was badly behind a year ago. Last night he won by 20 points. His rise began in the spring, driven in large part by his embrace of strong anti-Washington and pro-Texas rhetoric. While outsiders found many of his comments "secessionist" and extreme, Perry showed a fine ear for his Texas Republican voters who are themselves quite anti-Washington and pro-Texas. If the rhetoric was at times overblown, it still resonated with his constituency, and what harm is there in a little secessionist talk if it stirs up your base. You know you don't mean it literally, regardless of how MSNBC interprets it.

Sen. Hutchinson faced the problem of how to "out-populist" an overblown but effective populist. She was never going to be able to out-do Gov. Perry on this dimension. (See the lesson's of Gov. George Wallace in Alabama in the 1960s.) So her only option was to find an effective critique of that populism. She never did.

The challenge is how to find an effective counter argument to a rhetoric that cannot be taken literally but which resonates with voters as populist calls to arms. Gov. Perry expressed a symbolic truth for over half of GOP primary voters last night. Sen. Hutchinson failed to convince more that 30% of them that those symbolic claims were in fact irresponsible and unrealistic. She could not find a way to play the grown up to Perry's teenager.

This has long been a democratic (small d) problem. When populist enthusiasms run hot, be it Joe McCarthy or George Wallace or Rick Perry, responsible grownups find it very hard to compete. Wallace and Perry, at least, were consummate politicians with fine ears for voters. That is what makes them so effective as candidates and what poses so difficult a problem for their opponents.

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Same Data, Two Charts, Two Implications

charles@politicalarithmetik.com (Charles Franklin) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:28:52 -0500

by Charles Franklin

This chart from Organizing for American drew a lot of comment today. On its face, it is a striking and strong contrast between the Bush and Obama records on jobs. From a purely graphical perspective it is very effective in contrasting the rate of job loss in the past two years, and from a perspective of political rhetoric it is a strong claim that Obama has done better. And it has proven very attention getting, so it has served that political purpose as well.

But let's plot the same data in an equally relevant but strikingly different way visually. Let's look at total jobs lost over the past two years. This is simply the data above, but summed to show how many jobs the economy has shed and therefore how deep the hole is we still have to climb out of.

The OfA chart gives the impression that we have "returned" to where we were in January 2008. The sharp rise since February 2009 gives the impression that what was lost in red has now been regained in blue. But of course, that isn't right. The rate of loss has indeed slowed tremendously in the first year of the Obama administration, something the White House has every right to crow about. But that doesn't mean we've returned to previous employment levels. In fact, we've continued to sink lower throughout the last year, just at a slower and slower rate.

This second chart makes that perspective on the data more clear. It is visually clear, if less dramatic than for OfA's chart, that the rate of job loss has slowed. But my version of the chart drives home the point that we have continued to lose jobs and now stand at over 8 million jobs lost since December of 2007. That is the other "deficit" the administration must worry about. The recovery, which GDP data show has started and at 5.7% growth in the 4th quarter is quite strong, will take a very long time to regain these lost jobs. This fact is made clear in my chart, while it is obscured in the OfA presentation.

Interestingly, my chart is also subtly deceptive. More jobs were lost in the last Bush year than were lost in the first Obama year. But the red lines look shorter and smaller than the blue Obama lines. That makes the graph appear to show that things are worse for Obama, even though his job losses are actually about 3 million compared to Bush's 5 million.

One can think of these two charts as data displays that reveal different aspects of data, but

also as graphical political rhetoric. The different aspects of data are the sharp reduction in the rate of job loss shown so well in the OfA chart and the terrible cumulative loss to employment in the country that has not yet started to rebound that is shown in my chart. Both of those are "true facts" about the jobs data. They use exactly the same data, so differences are entirely matters of perspective and perception rather than "apples to oranges" comparisons. But while both are true stories, their substantive interpretations are quite different-- one is a story of an administration's success is stemming the tide of recession, the other is the high water mark of that tide, which has yet to begin receding.

The other story is graph as rhetoric. The OfA is splendid rhetoric that seems to make an utterly persuasive point with simple yet bold graphics. But it is a rhetorical answer that conducts a slight of hand away from recovery of jobs lost to reductions in rate of loss. Credit worthy to be sure, but not so positive a result as the chart suggests. The rhetoric also succeeds because it has been so widely picked up and commented upon. Even the critics pass on the message that is sent by every viewing of the image.

My chart has its own rhetorical concerns. By focusing on the status of job losses, rather than their trajectory, mine shows the depths of job loss and the lack so far of a trend back up. Mine doesn't lie, because it too shows the reduction in rate of loss, but without a hint of even the beginning of recovery of jobs, mine clearly leaves the rhetorical impression that things are not only no better but are actually quite a bit worse than when Obama took office. The added optical illusion that the red bars are shorter than the blue, even though the opposite is the case, just adds to the false impression that most of the jobs troubles are within the Obama year.

Same data, two charts, two different impressions, both fundamentally true yet also fundamentally misleading in opposite ways. When data and politics mix beware the power of graphs to imply their own conclusions, even with the same data. And appreciate the rhetorical success of a graph that does it's creator's bidding.

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How Massachusetts Votes Shifted

charles@politicalarithmetik.com (Charles Franklin) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:05:14 -0500

by Charles Franklin

The distribution of the vote shifted for Martha Coakley but not for Scott Brown last night. That was the key to Brown's win.

The top left of the chart above shows the distribution of Coakley's vote compared to Brown's. Brown's better total shifts his distribution clearly to the right. That's not interesting. But the bottom row is very interesting. The bottom left panel compares Coakley (dark blue) with Obama's light blue distribution in 2008. She's well to the left, doing worse. Of course you'd expect drop-off from a presidential to a special election. But the bottom right panel is amazing. Brown's distribution almost exactly duplicates McCain's. In a January special election, Brown's vote is a clone of McCain's in a presidential contest. That is amazing.

Here is another way to look at it. Plot last night's vote by town against their party's candidate in 2008.

Brown's votes are almost exactly on the 45-degree line showing equality between 2008 and 2010 vote totals by town. But not so the blue dots, which are all, yes every single one, well below the diagonal. Brown's total actually slightly improved upon McCain's. Coakley's total was just 56% of Obama's total.

The chart is powerful but the logarithmic scale makes the two clusters of points appear closer than they "really" are. Let's plot Coakley as a percent of Obama vote against Brown as a percent of McCain for a more compelling view.

Wow. The imbalance of performance is stark. Coakley's BEST town gave her 80% of Obama's vote. That's equal to Brown's WORST towns. Even the towns Coakley won were places she was dramatically underperforming Obama. And there are no pockets of strength visible here. Brown was doing over 100% except in a few blue towns but he even outperformed McCain in a number of towns that went for Coakley.

Of course this doesn't mean that Brown got exactly McCain's voters, since lots of individual switching could add up to these totals. But in the aggregate, Mass. in 2010 looks exactly like it did in 2008 on the Rep side. On the Dem side, a whole lot fewer voters.

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Massachusetts Election Night Trends

charles@politicalarithmetik.com (Charles Franklin) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 04:44:56 -0500

by Charles Franklin

We liveblogged these last night. Compulsion makes me post the final versions with 100% of precincts reported. Do note that it is common for the final certified vote to differ a bit from these 100% election night totals, so the final percentages and margin may move a tad.

Above is the trend in Brown's percent of the vote over the evening. Stable, but with a downward trend as the more Democratic areas reported relatively late in the evening after about 70% of the vote was in.

Below is the vote margin by estimated vote outstanding. It wasn't close enough to matter last night, but what you like to watch for is when the margin is getting big relative to the outstanding vote. At some point it becomes mathematically impossible to close the gap. That happened last night with 95.3% of precincts reported. Then the fat lady sings. (By the way, you read this one from right to left.)

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Solid Brown Lead in Final MA-Sen Models

charles@politicalarithmetik.com (Charles Franklin) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:42:55 -0500

by Charles Franklin

Republican Scott Brown holds a lead in all 18 alternative models of the Massachusetts Senate race polls, now including all polls released through 6:00 p.m. Monday. Our standard trend estimate puts the race at a 6.2 point Brown lead over Democrat Martha Coakley. The less sensitive alternative linear model puts the Brown lead at 7.3 points. Across all models, Brown leads by between 1.0 and 8.9 points. Three quarters of the estimates have Brown ahead by 4 points or more.

Brown built this lead over the past week of polling with only some tentative sign of the trend flattening over the weekend. Of course the last available polls were completed Sunday evening so we do not know if any movement has occurred on Monday.

Here is a brief review of the polls and the various models estimated. First, the polls without any trend estimates:

One of the unusual features of the MA polls is the large number of leaks from Coakley's internal polling. No one leaks without a reason, and her leaks have been consistently better for her than other polling taken at the same times (with one exception). Past analysis has found that internal polls are typically about 5 points better on the margin for the leaker than are independent polls, but that the internal polls do track the trend rather well. This raises a question of how to treat Coakley's polls. Below, I estimate the models both with and without the leaks included, so we can see their potential impact. I have not discounted them for the historical five point bias with internal polls.

First, let's estimate the local regression models that are our standard here at Pollster. These are not identical to the dynamic charts because here I am estimating the Dem minus Rep margin while our charts estimate each candidate separately. I estimate the standard model, a more sensitive and a less sensitive version, and then repeat with the leaked polls included.

With the limited number of polls, the local its are not as smooth as in our usual trends with dozens or hundreds of polls. They may also be more sensitive to outliers. That is one reason to check the effect of sensitivity. For the three models without leaked polls, the sensitivity matters a bit for the trajectory but hardly at all for the endpoints. When internal polls are included, the trends end up a couple of points more Democratic, though still put Brown ahead in the end. (The more sensitive estimate touches dead even but that is due to a day with only an internal poll. The sensitive estimator chases that but then moves back down.)

Next I switch to even less sensitive linear models. The local trends show some non-linear movement, and suggest a small upturn in the last day of polling, which the linear models will miss. But with relatively few polls, much of the "bendiness" of the local trends is due to noise and overfitting the data rather than meaningful shifts. The linear fits are a hedge against the noise, at the expense of an ability to spot a reversal of trend.

With these models we can disaggregate the data by partisan affiliation of pollsters. This gives a range of estimates from most favorable to Republicans to neutral (no picking of polls) to most favorable to the Democrats. Here I include the leaked polls in the most Democratic model, using only Dem polls plus the leaked internals, and in one model with everything we have regardless of source. The result is a range of estimates. The most Democratic model shows a 1 point Brown lead. Others range from about 5 to about 9 point Republican margins.

A final variation in the models is to fit quadratic models to allow the trends to bend according to how much the data demand a bend. If there were substantial upturns (or downturns) at the end, the quadratic model could pick that up while still maintaining less sensitivity than the local regressions we started with.

As it happens, the data don't demand much bend at all. The fit is only slightly better with the bend and the end points of the lines are only modestly changed.

Finally, let's see the garbage can of all the models at once, to see if any stand out as very different.

There is a range of estimates, but all are below zero, indicating a Republican lead. The two most Democratic models (using only Dem polls plus the internal leaks) stand out as most different from the rest. Half of the models fall between -4.3 and -7.4. The two most Republican estimates put Brown's lead at about 8.8 points.

The caveats are that turnout may yet matter, for either side. Reps enjoy an enthusiasm advantage, according to the polls, but Dems might yet mobilize their voters beyond what the polling suggests. And there is the unknown of the GOTV efforts on Tuesday. But if Coakley wins, this will be a major surprise, and the pollsters will have a lot to rethink about their methods. A win for Brown will have huge implications for the Democratic policy agenda and will put the fear of God into Democrats running in November.

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What to believe about Massachusetts Senate Polls

charles@politicalarithmetik.com (Charles Franklin) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:30:04 -0500

by Charles Franklin

There has been a wider than normal range of polling results in the last two weeks from the Massachusetts Senate special election. This has been further clouded by a number of leaked internal polls and polling by relatively unknown and unproven pollsters, some partisan but others not. And most importantly, the rapid shifts in the race, reflected across all the polls, makes this a fast moving target. So let's take a moment to consider what we could reasonably conclude based on the data.

But no matter how you slice the data, the only reasonable conclusion is that Scott Brown has moved from well behind to a lead somewhere between 4 and 11 points.

The chart above shows all the polls we have available as of 12:36 a.m. Monday morning. That includes new PPP and Pajamas Media/CrossTarget polls released late Sunday evening. The chart also includes the leaked polls, mostly from the Coakley campaign but one from Brown as well. These leaked polls are NOT included in most of the estimates above, though they are not out of line with the rest of the data.

So what might you believe about these data? You could refuse to cherry pick the polls. That has long been our view here at Pollster.com. Our job is to summarize the trends as best we can, without partisan favor. If you do that, we get a 8.8 point Brown lead.

Perhaps you only trust non-partisan polls. Then the Brown lead is 6.8 points.

Maybe you are a Dem, who doesn't trust the Republican pollsters. Then Brown leads by 6.5 points.

Or you are a Dem who doesn't trust the non-partisan pollsters either and who does believe in the leaks from the Coakley campaign. Then Brown's lead is 3.8 points. (This is the only estimate that includes the leaks.)

Or you are a Rep who trusts GOP and nonpartisan polls only. Then Brown leads by 11.3. (There aren't enough Rep polls to run a Rep only estimate to parallel the Dem only, but I'd think an 11 point lead would be satisfying enough for Reps.)

There may be other ways to cut these data (IVR vs conventional phone, pollsters you've heard of vs ones you haven't) but it seems quite unlikely that any but the most selective reading of these data can find that the race remains a dead heat. Brown has a lead, as of Sunday night.

Let's back up a step to look at the data without the clutter. Here are just the polls, no trends fit.

Without the lines it is quite clear that the movement has been sharply towards Brown. Trace out what you like, ignore what you don't like, in the early polls Coakley is convincingly ahead. Then between about day -8 and -5 the polls are balanced above and below dead even. Since then no poll has shown a Coakley.

In my models in the first chart, I use linear fits rather than our usual local regressions. The reason is there are still not very many polls,and once we subset them by party there simply aren't enough cases to get good local regression fits. That subsetting is the main point here. But it also turns out that the local regression on all the data isn't very far from the linear fits I use above. Here is the comparison:

The blue trend is our standard estimate, and it wiggles a bit due to only 12 cases. If we use a bit less sensitive local regression, we get the black line. And the red linear fit isn't very far from either of the two local fits. So I'm willing to give up some flexibility in the fit for a bit more robustness, and especially the ability to fit the models by party of pollster that was the lede above.

Finally but significantly, we are seeing more pollster variation in this race than normal. If we look at the residuals around the trend estimates, past experience with 2004, 2006 and 2008 state and national contests has pretty consistently found that most of the polls (about 95%) fall within +/- 5 points of the trend estimate. Now that is an empirical observation, not a theoretical one. But it has been generally consistent in our data. How do these polls compare?

Only half of the current polls are inside +/-5 points of the linear trends. The number of polls is small, and this race is more dynamic than most. But one has to wonder about the problems of polling in a special election, the role of partisan and new players in the polling and the heavy use of IVR polls. This is much more variation in polls than we normally see in general elections.

Let's also recall the NY-23 special election, which was not polling's finest hour. The last three polls there had Hoffman up by 5, 5 and 17 points. Our final trend estimate based on all the polls had Hoffman up by 5, 41.8 to 36.8.

Polling special elections is hard. Tuesday we'll see how hard, and who was good and/or lucky.

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Obama as Reagan

charles@politicalarithmetik.com (Charles Franklin) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:14:58 -0500

by Charles Franklin

I've been struck for some time by the similarity of circumstance between Presidents Reagan and Obama. Both replaced deeply unpopular predecessors. Both enjoyed significant gains for their party in both houses of Congress. Both faced "worst since the depression" economic circumstances. And each in his own very different ways attempted to reshape government in the early months in office.

With a bit more than 10 months of approval data on Obama, we can now make a more meaningful comparison than was possible at the first 100 days look.

The similarity of approval trajectories is striking for Reagan and Obama. Reagan started lower, but since the 3rd month of office the two have moved along quite similar paths.

Of the ten post-war presidents in the chart, Reagan and Obama currently stand as the two lowest at this point in their first term. (Clinton fell lower early, but was recovering at this point before another decline and rise.) Reagan finished as the second lowest just before his midterm in 1982, ahead of only Truman. It happens that the economy under Reagan also bottomed out in November 1982, the worst possible time for the president and his party.

(I exclude Johnson because of his entry into office after Kennedy's midterm and Ford because he took office just 3 months before the 1974 mid-term. I keep Truman because he assumed the presidency very early in Roosevelt's fourth term, effectively serving the full term.)

Whether Obama continues to look like Reagan seems to me more likely to be driven by the same force-- the economy. While health care reform and Afghanistan will surely play a role in the public's view of Obama, I think the economy remains the most crucial driver of opinion. In this the administration can hope that the upturn in GDP in the third quarter, and the small down-tick in unemployment in November, are signals that the early quarters of 2010 will see further improvements. If so, the Democrats may avoid the terrible conjunction of midterm and economic bottom that cost Republicans 26 seats in the 1982 House elections. And President Obama may not compete with Reagan to see which will be the second most unpopular president at midterm time. But there are no guarantees of this and the parallels remain quite striking.

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Unemployment Trends in the States

charles@politicalarithmetik.com (Charles Franklin) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:20:09 -0500

by Charles Franklin

It is of interest to look closely at which states have unemployment that is beginning to fall and which are still rising. Likewise which states are above and which below the national trend.

States are ordered from lowest unemployment at the top left to highest at the bottom right.

Click the chart for a large (1024x768) image for the details.

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