According to a new report released by Checkr, many U.S. cities face a combination of limited job access and opportunity to earn a living wage. Featured cities are McAllen, TX, Fresno, CA, and Bakersfield, CA. You’ll find Scranton, PA, Memphis, TN, Augusta, GA, and Spokane, WA on that list. These cities share characteristics like high unemployment rates, focus on industries that are in decline, and lack of growth in available jobs.
That said, one city really stood out in the report for how low its score was—McAllen, Texas—for its especially bad score on Checkr’s employment opportunity metric. The city’s current 6.4% unemployment rate is well above the 4.2% national average. This seemingly deep, black hole record unemployment rate represents a larger macro recession storm impacting the entirety of the region, constricting new job attraction and overall growth.
Fresno, California, provides further illustration of a metro area struggling with an unequal labor market. Though it ranks among the 100 largest U.S. cities, its economy is closely tied to the agriculture and energy sectors. This heavy dependence on targeted industries only deepens the despair felt from a lack of diversified job prospects and continued economic stagnation. Bakersfield, too, faces these challenges as it too relies heavily on agriculture and energy.
Scranton, Pennsylvania is a city still dealing with the aftereffects of the industrial and manufacturing decline. Like many Midwest cities, the city has suffered from a hollowing out of its economic base over the past decades leaving few job opportunities for the residents.
Rochester, New York, has continued to keep its unemployment rate below the national average at 4.1%. This difference speaks to the wealth of different economic environments that exist along U.S. cities.
As Sam Radbil, a spokesperson for Checkr, explained, new job creation is not where it’s at. This induced slowdown can drastically limit a city’s room for growth. This home rule observation is of immense importance to cities like McAllen and Jackson, Mississippi. Their unemployment rates are 6.4% and 6.2%, respectively.
Regardless, the ten cities featured in Checkr’s report are struggling with deep economic injustices. They lag in job growth, rely on shrinking industries, and have low median wages coupled with elevated unemployment and poverty rates. As the report rightly notes, this should be a wake-up call to local governments and industries to start looking for new strategies for restoring their economies.