Chart of the Day: Colorado unemployment vs. US unemployment
The unemployment rate is good for basically one thing: comparing employment conditions in different markets at the same time. The unemployment rate isn't very good for comparing to the past because overall employment conditions have shifted significantly since the last expansion. The number of discouraged workers is much higher now than in, say, 2004, and the rates of under employment are higher as well. Neither of those things are really picked up in the unemployment rate, so it makes it hard to compare the present with the past. Nevertheless, we can get a sense of how Colorado compares to the nation right now by having a look at the two rates. So here they are, and I've thrown in the past twenty years: During March 2015, the unemployment rate in Colorado was 4.5 percent, down from 6.1 percent the previous March. Nationally, in March, the unemployment rate was 5.6 percent, down from 6.8 percent the previous March. The national rate fell further to 5.1 percent in April, b...