Governor Patrick keeps saying that Massachusetts is coming out of the global recession "faster and stronger" than the rest of the nation. But as the State House News Service reports, the state's unemployment rate remains a cause for serious concern, with Massachusetts continuing to post jobless numbers that are higher than all but one of its New England neighbors and well above the regional average.Citing newly-released data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, SHNS notes that the Commonwealth's unemployment rate of 9 percent is significantly lower than Rhode Island's rate of 11.9 percent. However, Massachusetts still ranks higher than Connecticut (8.9 percent), Maine (8.1 percent), Vermont (6 percent) and New Hampshire (5.8 percent).
Even with unemployment holding steady at 9 percent, this number is unacceptably high, and proof that much more needs to be done to create jobs and get the state's 312,000 unemployed residents back to work.
