Which Vermont Towns Had Highest (and Lowest) Unemployment?
Think Vermonters have been insulated from the U.S. unemployment crisis? Think again.
Public Assets Institute, the data-savvy Montpelier think tank, is out with a cool new interactive map that charts Vermont's 2010 unemployment rates town by town. And the figures are sobering.
While Vermont can boast a statewide unemployment rate of 6.2 percent (far below the national average of 9.1 percent), Vermonters in many towns — particularly in the Northeast Kingdom — remained out of work last year.
According to Vermont Department of Labor data collected by PAI, jobless rates for individual Vermont towns ranged from zero (in Averill) to 20.5 percent in the border town of Norton, population 214. All told, 23 Vermont towns had unemployment rates that averaged 10 percent or more last year.
Click here for the map. (Note: the image at right is not interactive. You'll have to go to PAI's site for that.)
