You gotta take your hat off to The Wall Street Journal for its interactive graph on unemployment. It plays the timeline of the recession and unemployment rates in each state on a map of the U.S. In addition, it traces the national unemployment rate and allows you to compare up to five states against the national rate.
The reason this is so great is that you can see how things went from normal to terribly bad in just a couple of years. Also, by comparing states, you can begin to understand where the pain was felt as states with heavy reliance on construction, manufacturing, and transportation were hit hardest. Even if you don't care about economic issues, it is one of the best graphics on unemployment that we've seen.
To view the article on the WSJ Real Time Economics Blog, click here.
To go straight to the interactive graph, click here. Press the play button on the map to see the recession unfold.
