The Associated Press released its Stress Index and shows that more areas are improving in terms of their economic performance.
The economic station of the country dropped in September to its lowest in 16 months. This was caused by an increased hiring in New England,
less foreclosures in the Mid-Atlantic, and the decline in bankruptcy filings around the Southeast. This was according to the monthly analysis of The Associated Press all across the whole country.
80 percent of the country’s 3,141 counties were able to experience improvements over the last few months, as shown by the Associated Press Economic Stress Index, except for the States of Colorado, Alaska, Mississippi, Kansas, Nevada and Nebraska.
Counties which have a high concentration of mining, farming, professional jobs and information technology were able to sustain a better economy last September. On the other hand, the counties which have high numbers of workers in the Real Estate and the retail industry had to deal with more economic stress.
The index gives scores to counties from 1 to 100, according to factors, such as unemployment, bankruptcy and foreclosure rates. The higher the score, the more economic stress there is. A rough rule is that if a county exceeds 11 points, then it is considered as under stress.
The average Stress score in September was 10, a decline for the score in August, which was 10.3. It was May 2009 when a score that low was reached. More than a third of the total number of counties was seen as stressed in September, showing a decrease from the previous month’s record which hit 40 percent.
Again, Nevada had the lowest stress score which was 21.93. California follows with 16.15m, and then Florida scored 15.86 at third place. Michigan got 15.76 and Arizona got 14.9
North Dakota still remains to be the healthiest state at the score of 3.75. At the number two spot is South Dakota with a score of 4.78. Nebraska got 5.73 and then Vermont got 5.89. New Hampshire overtook Wyoming from last month’s record with the score of 6.79.
Signs have been showing that the low stress in some areas across the country in September extended to other areas in the following month. Few days ago, the government stated that the economy contributed around 151,000 jobs last month, greatly aiding in the situation. Although this is not enough to eliminate unemployment, it helped the economy improve and gain ground for it to be able to progress again.
