Unemployment

     For this blog, I will be discussing my opinion and thoughts on the unemployment rates of parents in the following states, Michigan, Minnesota, and Maryland. The data tables I used to display the rates of unemployment were found on the Website, Kids Count Data Center.

     The unemployment rates not just through these three states but throughout the United States as a whole have always been a growing issue. A key concern with these rates are not the rates of the youth but the rates of the unemployed parents.  The question is what causes these unemployment rates to increase and what is the after math of the parents unemployment. The tables below show the rates of  unemployed parents in Michigan, Minnesota, and Maryland between the years 2008 and 2012.

Table 1: Michigan's Parent Unemployment Rate

Table 2: Minnesota's Parent Unemployment Rate

Table 3: Maryland's Parent Unemployment Rate

     As can be seen, between these three states, Michigan has the highest number if unemployed parents within the given time frame.  This could be the result of the crash of the big three automotive companies in which Michigan's economy is centered around. All three automotive companies, Ford, GM, FCA, declared bankruptcy and had to lay off thousands of people which increased these rates during this time. The unemployment in Michigan peaked in 2009 with 198,000 parents out of a job. This could be a single parent or it could be both parents. Another cause of this is just the huge economy crash that happed during this time as well. It can also be seen  that Minnesota and Maryland were affected by this economy crash from 2008 to 2010. With these three states both being affected by the economic crash occurring in 2008, one could assume that the rest of the United States also saw a large negative impact. Within this economy crash, many companies also failed. For example, Chrysler used to be its own company and was a huge competitor with Ford and GM until they went under and were bought out by Fiat. Now they are no longer named Chrysler, it is FCA or Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.  This merging of companies means that some people were probably laid off and new people were brought in from the company who bought the other out.

     With all this going on for the parents, what are the after math effects on being unemployed for their families or social life? With a parent or parents being laid off or unemployed, one can anticipate dramatic lifestyle changes for their families as they will not be able to do the things they were able to do before as they will have less of an income. Another obstacle this brings to the parents being able to find employment along side of  thousands of other unemployed parents competing for the same job. One question ripe for exploration, does this affect family affairs as well? With the stressful times of being unemployed it will be easy for the unemployed parents to take out their stress on their loved ones and or their friends.

   This is just some food for thought and how I feel about this subject as it is still a current growing issue.