Fla. Unemployment Continues Falling
TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami) – Florida's unemployment rate in April continued to mirror that of the rest of the country, dropping to 8.7 percent, according to numbers released Friday.
Locally, Broward County's unemployment rate dropped from 7.5 to 7.2 percent month-over-month. Broward currently has 70,551 residents on unemployment insurance. One year ago, Broward's unemployment rate was 8.8 percent.
In Miami-Dade County, the unemployment rate in April remained steady from March at 9 percent. Miami-Dade has 115,563 workers on unemployment insurance in April. Last year, Miami-Dade's unemployment rate in April was 12.2 percent.
Monroe County continued to pace the state with an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent. Just 2,269 people in Monroe County are on unemployment insurance. Monroe's unemployment rate has dropped 3.2 percent year over year.
The numbers present a problem for both Democrats and Republicans.
Governor Rick Scott and other Republicans will tout the dropping unemployment rate as proof their policies are working. However, by doing that, they are also admitting the nation's economy as a whole is improving, contrary to their attacks on President Barack Obama.
Democrats will try to hammer away saying the numbers don't reflect the true unemployment picture because it only includes workers currently on unemployment insurance. But, by making that argument, Democrats are admitting that the overall national unemployment numbers are not as good as earlier reported.
