NEW YORK — Higher unemployment and foreclosure rates, especially in South Atlantic and Mountain states, raised the nation’s economic stress in November, according to an Associated Press analysis.
One month after economic stress reached an 18-month low nationally, it rose in three-quarters of the 3,141 counties AP analyzed and in 39 states. Unemployment and foreclosures edged up in more than two-thirds of the states. Bankruptcies rose in half the states.
Florida, in particular, is struggling. Its recovery has lagged other states that also were ravaged by the housing bust because Florida’s economy is less diverse.
And Colorado, Idaho and other Mountain states have suffered from a loss of drilling, tourism and construction jobs.
That region fell into recession later than much of the country did, said Richard Wobbekind, an economist at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
“Late in, late out,” he said.
The Associated Press
