Tracking Metropolitan Unemployment

The analysis was based on changes in claims for unemployment assistance and food stamps over the past 20 months of the economic recession. The study finds that unemployment rates in urban areas is about the same as suburban areas.

"Understanding how different metropolitan areas have been affected by the recession is a critical step toward shaping appropriate regional public- and private-sector responses to promote recovery. Of course, metropolitan areas are collections of communities that may also be experiencing the downturn to varying degrees, especially now that more than half of America’s metropolitan poor live in suburbia. Intra-metropolitan patterns of unemployment and need should thus additionally inform efforts to put metropolitan workers and firms on the road to recovery."