While praising the latest unemployment figures, Larry Lee points out rural Alabama continues to fall behind.

The Office of Budget & Management says Bullock, Butler, Cherokee, Choctaw, Clarke, Clay, Cleburne, Conecuh, Covington, Crenshaw, Escambia, Fayette, Franklin, Lamar, Marengo, Marion, Monroe, Perry, Pickens, Randolph, Sumter, Washington, Wilcox and Winston are our most rural counties.

From December 2004 through November 2005, 11 of these counties lost jobs and according to data from the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations, total jobs in “nonmetropolitan” Alabama went from 190,140 to 193,729 during the last year.

That’s only 310 more jobs for 24 counties than Shelby County gained by itself. That means job growth in Shelby County was about 250 percent greater than in rural Alabama. In fact, of the statewide increase of 39,418 jobs in the last 12 months, 66.4 percent of them were in Elmore, Lee, Madison, Morgan and Shelby counties alone.

It’s the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, and we just keep marching on. It is time to wake up to this disparity and start working toward doing something about it.

Sphere: Related Content