Warren wages have risen over the past decade

Some good economic news for Warren County: Average annual pay has increased in Warren County over the past decade, according to federal data analyzed by the Wall Street Journal. 

Wages in Warren County have increased 5.6 percent from 2004 to last year, to slightly more than $34,000 per year, the Journal reports via this interactive map.  The figures were adjusted for inflation.

The statistics are even better in Hancock County, where wages have gone up 11 percent in the past decade, the data show -- though that brings the average annual pay of Hancock Countians to only $31,000 per year.

Taliaferro County average pay has gone up by 3.2 percent over the same time period, the data show.

If Warren, Hancock and Taliferro were winners, then some of their neighbors were losers. Annual wages in Glascock County shrank by a third over the past decade, while wages in Washington County dropped 17 percent, and wages in Jefferson County slipped nine percent.

The Journal says a wages have gone down in a third of all counties in the U.S. over the past decade.

Warren County's abysmal unemployment rate, or, 'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?'

If you live in Warren County and you're looking for work, you're in the wrong place.

Warren County and Hancock County had the two worst unemployment rates in the entire state for January 2011, the most recent month for which county-level stats appear to be available on the Georgia Department of Labor's Web site as of today.

Warren County's unemployment rate was 19 percent. As I recall from freshman economics, generally speaking, if you lined up every person in Warren County who is able to work and who wants a job, about one person out of five would be unable to find a job.

Hancock County's rate was 24.9%. In other words, if you lined up the same group of people in Hancock County, about one person out of every four would be unable to find a job.

Consider this: The national unemployment rate in 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, was 23.6%.

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New York Times comes to Gibson for bank closure

Well, it finally happened. No, hell didn't freeze over, but this is almost as strange: Gibson, Ga., was on the front page of the New York Times. No, I'm not kidding. It was right there on the front page on Saturday. The Times recounted the story of the shuttering of what used to be the Bank of Gibson, more recently called FirstCity. You can read it at this link, though you might have to sign up for the free Times registration to get to the story.