Special to Elmore Autauga News
As predicted the April, 2020 unemployment information was not good.
Alabama experienced an unemployment rate of 3.5% in March. The April rate, which was announced May 22, is a whopping 12.9%, an increase of 268%. The U.S. unemployment rate in March was 4.4%, but ballooned to 14.7%, an increase of 227%.
The 12.9% rate for Alabama is the worst since 1982 when the unemployment rate hit 15.5%.
The April statistics do a much better job than those of March when telling the story as it relates to the coronavirus. The majority of information used to compile the March statistics was gathered before the week of March 16 – the time most of the shutdown began. As a result, the figures for April take into account a more accurate picture of the entire shutdown period.
ON THE LOCAL FRONT: The April unemployment rates in the River Region were: Autauga 11.5% (up from 3.1%); Elmore 11.1% (up from 3.0%); Montgomery 15.1% (a huge increase from the previous state average of 3.5%). The worst rate in Alabama is Lowndes County at 26.0% and the best rate is Geneva County at 8.1%.
