Unemployment in the United States is at 6.7% (as of the November figures). What about in the Panhandle? What about in the South more generally? With the NY Times reported “States’ Funds for Jobless Are Drying Up” these questions have a more tangible important to our readers in the South.

Using Jeff’s map of the Panhandle as my starting point, I compiled the unemployment averages of all 29 counties in the Florida Panhandle from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The most recent numbers available for October are compared below to that month’s national average of 6.5%.

Data is for Panhandle counties in the following order: Alachua, Baker, Bay, Bradford, Calhoun, Dixie, Escambia, Flagler, Franklin, Gadsden, Gilchrist, Gulf, Hamilton, Holmes, Jackson, Jefferson, Lafayette, Leon, Levy, Liberty, Madison, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Suwannee, Taylor, Union, Wakulla, Walton, Washington

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I guess its time for me to lay out all my cards and start earning my keep around here. One of my academic fields is economic history, and I believe that one of the ways that the south is most different than the rest of the country has to do with its particular economic experiences.

A historical map. As if you didn't know what the Southeast looked like.

I plan to make this analysis in three parts. In this outing, I will discuss southern economic history into the early nineteenth century, taking us through the Colonial periods, essentially setting up what will happen when King Cotton ascends to the throne in the wake of the early national period. My next issue will take the story of cotton through to nearly the 20th century, and I’ll conclude with a story of the past 100 years.
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So, is Wal-Mart good for the South or not? I think I was in 8th grade when my hometown of Live Oak finally received a symbol of it’s status as more than a hick town (that’s roughly 1998, for those few readers not intimately familiar with my personal biography). At the north end of the city, a long and empty stretch of land from the town center leads to where Interstate 10 is dotted by fast-food and gas stations. It was here, surrounded by articles in the Suwannee Democrat expressing excitement and anticipation, that a new Wal-Mart store opened.

At the time I was as stoked as anyone to finally be able to buy clothes locally somewhere other than K-Mart, find cheap soda and candy, and get film developed all in the same location. After leaving Live Oak to begin my studies at New College, I began reading about the “Wal-Mart Effect” and the “Walmartization of America” and realized that Live Oak’s encounter with Wal-Mart may have been a more complicated gift than I originally thought. Click to read more…