If you’re part of the 8.3 percent of the unemployed, you might want to restart your job search in either Washington, DC, or Des Moines, IA.
Looking for a good, high-paying job? Over the next four years, the Washington, D.C. area is expected to add more than a quarter of a million of them, putting it at the top of this year’s Forbes list of the Best Cities for Jobs.
Washington’s performance shouldn’t be much of a surprise, since the steadily increasing power of the federal government has long drawn defense contractors, lawyers and lobbyists to the nation’s capital. Now that Obamacare has put another 17% of the U.S. economy under the firm control of federal bureaucrats, expect a new wave of moving vans bringing highly-paid healthcare executives to Washington’s expensive suburbs. With a median household income of $88,600, Washington ranks only behind the San Jose, Calif. area when it comes to salaries.
Number Two on our list might be a little more surprising: Des Moines, Iowa. Relatively high household incomes and a low unemployment rate mean this capital city five-and-a-half hours west of Chicago is primed to add good jobs that newcomers can fill. Moody’s Analytics, which compiled all the projections for this survey, estimates Des Moines-area employment will increase by 8.6% or 36,000 jobs to 461,000 by the end of 2016. Unemployment topped out at 6% in the depths of the recession and stands a little below that now, compared with 8.3% nationwide.
got into it. First selling cameras and photofinishing for Wolf Camera, moving into management, then going into management with Radio Shack after Wolf Camera imploded, then a handful of other sales jobs until I ended up at a staffing agency looking for temp work while my mom was recovery from her kidney transplant.
I know, I know, anyone can skew statistics to sound like anything they want it to sound like. But without statistics how else would we measure, well, anything?
