Unemployment has hit a nationwide average of just under 10% and it looks like a lot of places aren’t hiring, have implemented a hiring freeze, or are laying off a majority of its labor force. However, there are places all across the country where you can find work (usually) and you actually have a good chance of finding work in one of these cities.

1) Anchorage, Alaska. Anchorage is the largest city in Alaska, so much so that the population of the city is almost half of the total personal income for Alaska. The median age in the city is 33 and while the recession has hit the rest of the country pretty hard, in Anchorage the city marked it’s 20th year of job growth.

Twenty percent of the city’s jobs are in education, health services and government, all of which have increased the number of jobs for the past year. Big box retail stores are also starting to move into the city. Stores like Kohl’s and Best Buy have continued to open new stores in the city.

2) Arlington, Virginia. Arlington neighbors Washington D.C. and is home to the Pentagon as well as Arlington National Cemetery. The biggest employers in this city include the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, and the State Department. When there is a lot of government jobs in an area, the national unemployment rate has a much smaller effect on what is going on in the local employment rate.

Arlington also has several large private employers such as US Airways, Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Marriott.

3) Columbus, Ohio. Columbus has a strong distribution industry as well as a strong transportation industry and this can likely be attributed to the city’s central location in not only the state, but as well as the country.

Columbus has a diverse economy for such a Mid-America kind of town. It boasts healthcare, manufacturing, technology, as well as hospitality services. The largest employers in the city include the biggest university in the state Ohio State, Nationwide Insurance, Bob Evans, JP Morgan Chase, and OhioHealth.

4) Houston, Texas. This Texas city, like much of the rest of the state, has come out fairly unscathed in this recession. Houston is one of the only cities in the country where people are actually finding work. Houses in Texas are affordable and jobs are plentiful. Thanks to the city’s large stake in the oil industry, this city has continued to fare well.

Washington D.C. and the surrounding areas in Maryland and Virginia saw something in September that not many places across the country have seen; an increase in home prices. Unfortunately, while the prices increased, the median sale price did fall a bit.

Sales were up almost 19% in September in the area from just a year ago; with the median sale price declining almost 5% to $371,568.

Houses in D.C. are also selling for most of what the owner is asking. The average sale price in the area was 92% of the asking price.

Seeing any area, particularly a large metro area gaining in sales of homes is a pretty good (and not outrageous) sign that the economy is doing a bit better than it was a year ago. Then again, a year ago, credit had completely frozen as the subprime crisis really took off.

As banks have begun to lend again, more homes have started to sell. As the homes start to sell, prices will gradually begin to rise again. The rise will be in areas where there are jobs and every list that I’ve read says the jobs are in Washington D.C. due to the amount of government jobs as well as all of the large companies that are headquartered there.

When I was in Maryland over the summer, it didn’t seem like the recession had hit there as bad as it looked in other parts of the country I have seen in the last year. For example, while Chris and I were in St. Louis in August, restaurants were basically empty at dinner time. It’s not like we were going to obscure places either. The only restaurant I noticed was busy the entire time we were there was a Cheesecake Factory in one of the larger malls in the area. In Maryland, everything was always busy it seemed. Shopping centers were full of cars usually and there weren’t a lot of empty businesses making it look like a ghost town.

Source

Quinnipiac University, in Hamden, Connecticut, recently released a survey that says 64% of voters disapprove of Republicans in Congress and the job that they are doing and only 25% actually approve. The same poll said that 53% have an “unfavorable opinion” of the Republican party in general.

The poll was conducted to see how potential votes feel about the very crucial health care debate. It found that 61% of those polled are in favor of a government-run option that would directly compete with private insurance. Right now, this is the exact thing that those very vocal Republicans and their followers are up in arms about.

One thing that continues to irk me about watching the national news and watching (very obvious) Republican voters go to these town hall meetings to protest and yell is that they don’t listen. They will only listen to the side of the story they want to hear and will NOT have it any other way. A lot of times, the most extreme conservative followers only listen to those who are on the fringes of the party anyway…and they’re the ones who seem to be the loudest and, in most cases, they are wrong (this is where the whole “death panel” thing came from).

I continue not to be able to understand exactly why people do not support a government run option for health care. Is it because it will cause health costs to increase? That’s unlikely because, if anything, it will cause premiums on private insurance to decrease. It could mean that hospitals won’t be able to charge thousands of dollars for band-aids anymore. Hospitals RIGHT NOW have to charge that much because of all the people who go in without health insurance. They have to make up the money they are going to lose on people who will not pay their bill. That is what causes your health care costs to rise.

There are some that disagree with the way the way that illegal immigrants are being handled in the bill. Well, in order to sign up for the health care plan that is run by the government, it would be easy for them to make a person produce documents to prove they they were not only born in the United States (or a citizen) but also actually check social security numbers. Many illegal immigrants get away with faking documents because no one ever actually runs the social security numbers.

I think that if people would calm down and listen, there is a lot of good stuff in there for everyone. Then again, there are some people (and I know people like this personally) who, no matter what, will always oppose ANYTHING the democrats support. With these people, if the democrats supported “go pet a puppy day” they would protest and complain and be as vocal as possible. These are the kinds of people that I un-friend on Facebook (haha).

Source (for the poll numbers)