Senator Sherrod Brown's Statement on December Unemployment Figures

January 9, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) today reported that payroll numbers in December fell by 533,000 – for the twelfth straight month of job loss in the country. The nation’s unemployment rate jumped to 7.2 percent, from 6.8 percent in November.

In response, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) issued the following statement:

“Today marks the twelfth straight month of job loss for our country. In just two months alone, more than one million Americans lost their jobs. We are not only talking about numbers or percentages when it comes to unemployment. We are talking about families with mortgages and health care costs.

Ohioans don’t need statistics to tell them about the state our economy. Just this week, our state’s unemployment system crashed. Thousands of Ohioans are in need of assistance, and we need to act now. I will continue to work to pass an economic recovery plan that creates jobs and invests in the middle class.”

Medina County Unemployment Rate Lower Than State Average

According to this report from the Ohio News Network, Medina County's unemployment rate is at 5.6%. This is lower than all but one of the contiguous counties to Medina County. The one contiguous county with a slightly lower unemployment rate is Wayne County, which has an umemployment rate of 5.4%. Medina County's rate is lower than Ohio's average of 6.4%, and again of the contiguous counties, two have a higher unemployment rate than the state average and those are Cuyahoga and Lorain.