Sep 14, 2006 2 min read

A recent statistic should have everyone in Fayette County questioning whether a new strategy is needed to combat unemployment in the county. Likewise, particularly with an election coming up in a couple of months, it should make you think twice about any politician’s claim that his clout has put the county on the move. Here’s the number: For July, Fayette’s unemployment rate of 6.8 percent was good for 65th place among Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. Some may herald that as a major achievement – after all, Fayette had been in 67th place in June – but we don’t think moving up two spots from last place calls for popping the champagne cork.

The state average for July was 4.8 percent. Fayette continued to trail surrounding counties: 59-th-place Greene (6.0 percent), 36th-place Westmoreland (5.2 percent) and 33rd-place Washington (5.1 percent). Granted, the rate isn’t as bad in Fayette as it was in the 1980s, when a double-digit rate pushing toward the 20th-percentile was the norm.

But despite aggressively taking advantage of nearly every government assistance program under the sun, including the tax-free Keystone Opportunity Zone, Fayette remains mired at the bottom of the state’s employment pack. Either something isn’t working, or we have a hard-core group of unemployed who are either uninterested in, or incapable of, being productive workers. If the latter is true, then someone in power needs to admit it as a basic truth of our social fabric.

But if that’s not the case, someone needs to rethink why Fayette continues to wallow at the bottom of this trough, unable to acquire even a mediocre standing among its peers. (Greene, it should be noted, isn’t doing all that much better, with a ranking eight positions from the bottom.)

Amid a ranking controversy several months ago, state Rep. Peter J. Daley (D-California) was prompted to reveal that as of 2003, Fayette was the second-poorest county in Pennsylvania (and the poorest rural county) with median household income of $29,415, just 68.4 percent of the state average. Daley also noted that 25 percent of Fayette’s children live in poverty.

State and federal money to solve these problems continues flowing into our county, yet comparatively speaking we remain at the bottom of the proverbial barrel. Don’t expect anyone to put out a press release addressing this issue, especially the politicians who keep telling us of the wonderful job they’re doing. But 65th place is nothing to brag about.

Clearing, something needs to change.