Guess what got a little bit better? Waterbury's unemployment rate! It reached a high of 12.8% in January, then started dropping. The April 2011 unemployment rate was estimated to be 11.9%. Before you start celebrating, bear in mind that labor experts believe that the improvement in the national unemployment rate is partially due to people simply no longer reporting their lack of employment. After a couple of years of being unable to find a job, many people give up. If you no longer qualify for unemployment benefits, there's little reason to continue reporting.
Out of curiosity, I did a little digging and found the following historical data about Waterbury's unemployment rate since 1961. The data prior to 1990 is from newspaper articles; 1990-present is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In most cases I have the average unemployment rate for an entire year, but sometimes all I have is the rate for a specific month.
UPDATED 6/21/11: I've added some context with national unemployment rates since 2001, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Sept. 1961 between 6 and 8.9%
1964 7.1%
1965 6.7%
April 1970 7.0%
Sept. 1971 10.1%
March 1975 11.5%
1976 15.5%
March 1983 10.0%
Dec. 1984 6.8%
March 1985 7.0%
1986 5.8%
1990 6.7%
1991 8.7%
1992 9.5%
1993 8.0%
1994 7.0%
1995 6.3%
1996 6.4%
1997 5.8%
1998 4.1%
1999 3.3%
2000 2.9% National Rate
2001 4.3% 4.7%
2002 6.0% 5.8%
2003 7.2% 6.0%
2004 6.3% 5.5%
2005 6.3% 5.1%
2006 5.7% 4.6%
2007 6.0% 4.6%
2008 7.5% 5.8%
2009 11.1% 9.3%
2010 12.1% 9.6%
Jan. 2011 12.8% 9.0%
March 2011 12.2% 8.8%
April 2011 11.9% 9.0%
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