All politics is local, right? Well, this morning, in our local news paper, it was announced that this NE Ohio county has almost 13 percent unemployment. That's definitely not good.
Columbiana County's estimated unemployment rate skyrocketed by nearly a third in January to 12.8 percent, well above the state and national averages. According to figures available Tuesday from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, 6,900 county residents are listed as unemployed compared to 4,800 in December, when the local unemployment rate was 8.9 percent.I definitely see that in my patients. We talk about it a lot. You may have heard some news reports recently about people losing sleep over their financial situation. We're definitely seeing it here. Just a sad situation. Another thing we're seeing is that people not coming into the office, because they lost their health insurance when the were laid off. Or, people not coming into the office as often stating that they cannot afford it. That's how it is here in grassroots America.The estimated unemployment rate in January for Ohio was 9.7 percent and 8.5 percent for the United States. These are not the seasonably adjusted rates, which are lower and the ones commonly reported by the national news media. The unemployment rate was the highest in the county since April 1984, when it stood at 12.9 percent and was declining from a peak of 21 percent reached in January 1983 at the height of the 1981-82 recession.