http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/09/growth-and-jobsWHENEVER the Bureau of Economic Analysis releases new data on sub-national output, I find it interesting to dig in and see if state and metropolitan economies are behaving as Arthur Okun would have us expect. Where growth is occuring, is it translating into the expected change in employment?
This week, BEA put up new figures on metropolitan GDP, for 2010. Here's a look at the change in GDP for that year and the change in the unemployment rate for the 50 biggest metropolitan economies (many thanks to our research and graphics departments for their help with these):
A couple of things stand out here. One is that way too many of these economies experienced growth under 3% in 2010. Another, however, is the general negative relationship; across these cities faster growth seemed generally to translate into a bigger drop in the unemployment rate, as we'd expect. To a large extent, then, America's employment shortfall looks like a growth shortfall.