D.C.'s Unemployment Surges Past 10% Despite Expanding Government

The Washington Post reports:

The District's unemployment rate surpassed 10 percent last month, the highest level since September 1983, even though the city is among the few in the country where jobs are being created.

Unemployment also rose in Maryland and Virginia, though not as much as in the District, whose jobless rate went from 9.9 percent in April to 10.7 percent in May. D.C. rate surpasses the national average, 9.4 percent, and is in the company of other urban areas such as Los Angeles (11.6 percent), Chicago (10.5 percent) and Miami (9.8 percent).

Although the Washington area is widely considered relatively immune to fluctuations in the job market because of steady federal government employment, much of that benefit is felt in the two neighboring states, which both had 6.8 percent unemployment in April, rising in May to 7.2 percent in Maryland and 7.1 percent in Virginia.

D.C. "is a city like many central cities with a substantial low-income population with low skills," said Alice Rivlin, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who served as chairman of the District's financial control board when the city was going through a financial crisis in the 1990s. "We have plenty of jobs, but mostly high-skill jobs that require education beyond high school."

Great moments in Blue America.