Using 24 years (1990-2013) of county-level data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Map Metrics created a time-lapse depiction of unemployment in the U.S. at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st.  Counties with an unemployment rate of 8 percent or greater are shaded in red.

The map shows the effects on unemployment of the brief recessions of the early 1990s and early 2000s, and most dramatically, the 2009 financial crisis, with an explosion of red that spared few areas (mostly in the Midwest), but showed signs of receding in 2013.



Read more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/31/america-unemployment-map_n_5744656.html

TeachingwithData.org resources:
Unemployment rate by age, January 1948 to July 2009 (http://www.teachingwithdata.org/resource/2939)
Economy Track: Employment to Population Ratio (http://www.teachingwithdata.org/resource/2936)
Gallup Interactives: Global Employment Tracking (http://www.teachingwithdata.org/resource/3898)