Good news for Fayette
For the month of March, Fayette County’s unemployment rate ranked 46th-highest among Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. That might not sound like a particularly great finish – comparatively speaking, it’s still not good enough to pop the cork on the celebratory champagne – but it’s a noteworthy jump of 11 spots from January. And the latest standing, as chronicled by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor, is a far cry better than Fayette’s last-place finish in June 2006, less than a year ago, when our rate was 6.6 percent. Viewed from that prism, Fayette has moved up 21 spots in the rankings. We’re still not in the middle of the pack, but the latest statistics show we’re moving in that direction in terms of our unemployment rate.
While Fayette isn’t doing quite as good as neighboring Washington County (3.7 percent unemployment, 22nd-highest rate in the state) or Greene County (3.9 percent unemployment, 27th-highest rate in the state), it’s worth noting that Fayette’s unemployment rate of 4.3 percent was actually .10 percent lower than the March national average of 4.4 percent. We honestly can’t recall the last time that happened.
All three counties have shown steady improvement in the first three months of this year for which rates have been tabulated: Fayette’s rate has gone from 5.7 in January to 4.9 in February to 4.3 percent in March, Greene’s rate has gone from 5.3 in January to 4.4 in February to 3.9 in March, and Washington’s rate has gone from 4.8 in January to 4.1 in February to 3.7 in March.
For comparison purposes, in the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area, the rates for those three months have been 4.6, 3.9 and 3.6; while the state rates have been 4.7, 4.0 and 3.8.
We realize that critics will say that statistics can often be manipulated to support whatever conclusion one wants, and that a lower unemployment rate doesn’t address important factors like what those jobs pay. One can be employed, for example, but not necessarily in a job that pays particularly well, or one that offers a full array of benefits or any sort of long-term economic stability.
But it’s a given that the unemployment rate is a widely accepted barometer of the health of the economy. If we’re willing to use it as a measuring stick when we hover near the bottom of the list, we must also be willing to use it as a standard when that number shows upward movement.
This is not to say that we’re willing to be blind cheerleaders for a cause that isn’t reflected in reality. That would be a total abrogation of our duty to use truth as the basis for what we analyze and write about on a daily basis.
But when the government’s numbers show tangible improvement, as the recent ones do, it’s worth pointing out.