As higher education goes up in rural counties, unemployment goes down

While unemployment in rural, urban and exurban counties has risen and fallen at roughly the same rate during the recession, the rural rate has remained higher in most months. Why? Education may be the biggest reason, Roberto Gallardo and Bill Bishop write for the Daily Yonder. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the unemployment rate in January for those over 25 years with less than a high-school education was 15.2 percent while the rate for those with a bachelor's degree or higher was only 4.9 percent.

The link between education and employment is even stronger in rural areas, Gallardo and Bishop write. The Yonder chart, below, shows the percentage of residents in rural, urban and exurban counties with at least a bachelor's degree. The three bars on the left represent counties with an unemployment rate lower than the national average, and the three bars on the right represent counties with a higher unemployment rate than the national average. (Read more)