Unemployment rises again 
I got them on the dole again
Pocket got a hole again
Busted to my soul again
Unemployment Blues

Employment in California shrunk last month; the unemployment rate rose from 11.9% to 12.2%. Sierra County’s official unemployment rate is 14.4%, a little high, even for the cow counties, but not as drastic as Imperial county, which is suffering a mind boggling 28.7%, nearly twice Sierra County’s rate.

This represents a loss of 51,000 jobs for July and August, and a loss of nearly 900,000 jobs since August, 2008.

However, even that dismal rate doesn’t adequately measure the damage the current depression has done to the county. The reduced population, a measure for which there currently are no accurate figures, has, of itself, caused a hardship on the county, such as declining school enrollment, while artificially reducing our unemployment rate. For example, if everyone without a job left the county, the unemployment rate would be 0%, the median household income would probably rise to $75,000, but only 1300 people would live in the county. (See "Unemployment Games" from our archive).