The Associated Press has created an interactive map to measure the financial strain across the United States. The map displays such indicators as unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcy to measure economic stress. Mousing over individual counties reveals current numbers and compares them to figures for October 2007.
A quick scan of the map reveals several bands of hardship for states along the Pacific coast and for traditional manufacturing states from Michigan down to Alabama. Mackinac County, Michigan is among those hardest hit, with a stress index of 28.4 percent. The unemployment rate there stands at 28 percent, but the foreclosure rate is low at .16 percent. Those figures contrast with Merced County, California, where the foreclosure rate is 8.4 percent, and unemployment is at 20 percent.
The interactive map contains a good bit of detail regarding the numbers, including a video of Professor Tony Smith who describes the Economic Stress Index and weighted averages. Smith states that the methodology used tries to get away from measuring the stress of the individual hardships of unemployment, bankruptcy and foreclosure by integrating them and then measuring the cumulative effect.
Clicking on the People tab allows you to go beyond the numbers to view the stories of individuals. There are short videos of people relating their invididual experiences, from losing their jobs to the Repo Man that’s thriving on the hardship of others.
