The Sunbelt Is Struggling

NYT, via nc links:

The once-booming South, which entered the recession with the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, is now struggling with some of the highest rates, recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show.
Several Southern states — including South Carolina, whose 11.1 percent unemployment rate is the fourth highest in the nation — have higher unemployment rates than they did a year ago. Unemployment in the South is now higher than it is in the Northeast and the Midwest, which include Rust Belt states that were struggling even before the recession.
For decades, the nation’s economic landscape consisted of a prospering Sun Belt and a struggling Rust Belt. Since the recession hit, though, that is no longer the case. Unemployment remains high across much of the country — the national rate is 9.1 percent — but the regions have recovered at different speeds.

I would guess the downturn in construction has had trickle-down effects on the rest of the economy down south, along with state and local government cuts.  I've never bought into the claim that the rest of the country should be more like the south, but it seems to be the direction the Republican party wants to take us.  I'd like to believe that all regions of the country will start to recover, but I just can't do it.