A nice article from yahoo details ten states that are below the national average for unemployment .  It looks like most of them are highly agricultural, and a couple are tourism based.  Also notable is that about 25 percent of the population or so of most of them have a bachelor's degree, which is lower than the national average.  I think it's great that there are some beacons of hope for bringing home a paycheck, but something the article doesn't address is the average wage for those employed.  I mean, don't get me wrong, earning 80 percent of a paycheck is better than earning zero percent of a paycheck, but it would put some perspective on the employment numbers.  I think that this recession is going to depress the mean wage for quite a while.  Why?  Because it CAN.  Right now large companies are barely hiring regardless of the cash reserve that most of them are sitting on.  Why?  Because they are expecting a slow return to the retail stores by the nation's consumers.

I keep hearing over and over (and used to parrot, as well) that large companies are necessary and we need to make life easy for them because they CREATE the jobs .  How many jobs  has the fry guy at McDonald's ever created, they ask?  Here's a thought, though, born out by the recent lack of hiring, even by the large companies.  When they don't expect to sell product or services, they don't HIRE to sell product or services.  What would really create those jobs ?  Demand for the products and services.  What creates demand?  Disposable income.  That's right.  So let's make consumer credit a little more difficult to obtain, ensure we have respectable wages here at home, and then get something for that money!  At least that's my pie in the sky.