The use of oil has helped the Conservative State of North Dakota to have the lowest unemployment rate within the Nation.
The Following news article is from the Los Angeles Times:
North Dakota isn't feeling the slump
The state has added 20,000 jobs in the last year and the unemployment rate is 3.5%, the lowest in the nation. But that doesn't mean people here are any happier with Washington.
October 01, 2011 | By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Watford City, N.D. — If people anywhere in the nation should feel good about the economy, it's those living in North Dakota, where an oil boom is creating so many jobs that even taco joints offer $15 an hour to attract employees.
Drawn by the promise of well-paying jobs, people from across the country flock here and settle in the makeshift clusters of RV campers and manufactured mobile homes that dot the outskirts of towns like this one, two hours south of the Canadian border.
The state of North Dakota has added 20,000 jobs over the last year, and its unemployment rate is the lowest in the nation, at 3.5%. Its budget has an estimated $1-billion surplus.
"I was told this is the only place in the country where there were jobs," said Stephen Swaner, 29, who lives in a van with his girlfriend, her father and their dog and works 16-hour days, hoping to pay off debt he incurred after getting laid off two years ago from a job at a foundry in Spokane, Wash. "There's all kinds of opportunity here."
But even after finding a new life in this land of plenty, people say they're still unhappy with the direction of the country and with politicians in general. The maxim "It's the economy, stupid" doesn't seem to hold true in North Dakota.
This state epitomizes a problem the Obama administration may face even if it is able to turn the economy around by 2012: People have suffered in this recession, and even when back on their feet, they have long memories of what they lost along the way.
Steve Williams, 59, moved his struggling construction company from Montana to Watford City, where he lives with his wife, son and two towheaded grandsons in a home he's renovating in exchange for rent. He knows he has a lot to be thankful for: He has health insurance for the first time in decades, a steady job and a new life in a town he says is "America, the way it should be."
"I have more work than I know what to do with," said Williams, a slight man with a brown beard and glasses. "I look at it like the Gold Rush."
But Williams is losing his $1-million home in Montana to foreclosure, and spent his first few months in North Dakota camped out in a tiny RV with his family, going to the bathroom in a bucket and living without running water.
"We're starting over again at 60, and we're adaptable. But our hopes and dreams got washed by the wayside," he said, as he fed his grandsons carrots and potatoes in his kitchen, where he and his wife sleep on a foldout couch each night. Light bulbs hang from the ceiling near exposed sockets, and the yellow, peeling walls are stuffed with sacks of fiberglass for insulation.
Thousands of others like Williams have left their ambitions behind for the wind-swept prairie. The population of Watford City, which was 1,570 in the 2010 Census, has grown to more than 5,000. In the first quarter of the year, sales tax receipts were up 72% from the same time the previous year. Schools are fuller than they've been in decades.
North Dakota's economy has soared since the discovery of the Bakken Shale, a deposit of oil that has proven both plentiful and relatively easy to extract. There are no signs of a slowdown in the fields: Research firm Raymond James predicts that production from the region will account for 15% of total domestic oil supply by 2015.
The oil boom is fueling growth throughout the economy. In Williston, a town 45 miles north of Watford City along a heavily traveled two-lane highway, hotels charge $200 a night for meager accommodations and are so overbooked that many newcomers sleep in their cars. Migrants post ads on Craigslist begging for rooming for less than $3,000 a month.
"Help wanted" signs are pasted on nearly every building: the local Jack & Jill supermarket, the Super 8 Hotel, the McDonald's, Hardee's and Taco John's. Builders plan to thaw the ground with heaters so they can work through the winter to construct industrial parks for the companies they're sure will come in the spring.
That doesn't mean people in Watford City are content with the White House, said Mayor Brent Sanford, who owns the only car dealership in town. Though families finally have enough cash to upgrade their cars, they won't buy Chevrolets, which he said they call "Obama Motors" because of the government's bailout of the company. Newcomers are relieved to have jobs, he said, but are also frustrated at what they had to go through to find them.
"Their lives have been destroyed, they've lost homes and businesses, they've had to sell their cars for plane tickets to get here," he said. "The desperation is just incredible."
Link: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/01 ... a-20110928 The Conservative State of North Dakota now has an unemployment rate as low as 3.3%.
Link: http://www.deptofnumbers.com/unemployment/north-dakota/"And I've said it before, you want to know what Joseph Smith looked like in Nauvoo, just look at Trump." - Fence Sitter