SENTINEL WATCH January 19, 2009 Issue

SOLUTIONS FOR THE UNEMPLOYED

CHANNING WALKER

JUST A FEW YEARS BACK, the county in which I reside was considered an economic powerhouse. It attracted companies by the truckload—many of them chose to headquarter here—and grew jobs at a pace that had the locals trumpeting the county's virtues. Today, however, it the county has any distinction at all, it's a dubious one. A recent headline summed up its troubles: "Once a growth engine, it is now the metro area with the highest jobless rate in the US" (Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2008).

Perhaps because I live in a thinly populated corner of the county that's mostly National Forest, I don't routinely face my county's inner-city blues, or the troops of unemployed struggling to make ends meet. But even from where I stand, I can see that far too many people find the hardships heavy.

The locals see the situation as kind of a double whammy of bad news. They say that with the entire nation in an economic meltdown, it's the wrong time to be out of work. And with the metro area of my county touting the nation's worst jobless rate, it's the wrong place to be job hunting.

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