How Is The Economy?
South Knox Bubba thinks the economy is in bad shape. I think otherwise. Who is right?

Here is a chart of national unemployment stats for each month for the past 10 years. Unemployment was 7.3 percent in Jan. 1993, a full 1.6 percentage points higher than January 2003.

Here is a chart of annualized unemployment rates, 1948-2002. Turns out unemployment was higher in four of those years (1992-7.5%, 1993-6.9%, 1994-6.1% and 2002-5.8%) than it is right now (5.7%).

And if you click here and then click the "TENNESSEE, seasonally adjusted" box, you'll see that on a monthly basis, unemployment was higher in every single month from January 1993 through June of 1994 than it is right now - ranging from 7% to 5.9% compared to the current rate of 5.7%. So, unemploment is lower now, during the generally-described-as-slumping Bush economy, than it was during the beginning of the Clinton-era economic boom.

Hmm...

UPDATE: Just ran the data on unemployment in the Knoxville metropolitan area for the last 10 years. Turns out it is much lower now - 2.8% in December - compared to January of 1993 when it was 6.2%. And for Nashville, the the rate was 3.1% in December compared to 4.8% in January 1993. So the economy is in better shape now than it was 10 years ago. And that's very good news. A decade ago, the economy was emerging from a recession (yes, it is historical fact: the recession was over and the economy already growing before Bill Clinton took office) but unemployment was still fairly high. Yet from that rough beginning, the economy built to an incredible boom. Today, the economy is growing slowly, but the recession - which started before Clinton left office - is over. And from a much healthier base, a new and larger boom will almost certainly emerge.