A majority of counties in the United States—93 percent—have not recovered from the recession that ended six years ago, according to a study the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
The study from the National Association of Counties evaluated four economic metrics—jobs, the unemployment rate, GDP, and median home prices—to see how counties fared. Only 214 counties of 3,069 in the United States had returned to prerecession levels of prosperity. The recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009.
"It tells you why many Americans don’t feel the good economic numbers they see on TV," said Emilia Istrate, one of the authors of the study.
Most of the places that did recover, did so because of energy. "The recovery is spreading out from the energy-rich center of the country – in part because a massive drop in oil prices is reversing job creation there while providing an economic benefit to larger metro areas near the coasts," the Wall Street Journal reported.
"Last year, 72 of the recovered counties were in Texas, the most of any state," the report said. "Nebraska followed with 22. Minnesota, Kentucky, North Dakota, Montana and Kansas each had at least 10 fully recovered counties."