The 10 Worst Cities for Job Seekers

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The collapse of the Riverside/San Bernardino area began in the early 1990s, when Bush Sr. closed a bunch of military bases including Norton AFB. That dealt a huge blow to San Bernardino's economy and the city has never fully recovered. Things are looking up, but it's hard to combat two decades of decay.

TSJ of CA 12:11AM May 27, 2011

There is a free resource for Veterans and Reservists / National Guardsmen in these cities, or anywhere across the country who are looking for career opportunities: The Dept. of Defense has a free program called the Employer Partnership of the Armed Forces which offers thousands of career opportunities with their >1,700 military-friendly Employer Partners. These partners and opportunities are located in every state and territory. The program is open to Reserve/Guardsmen, their Family Members and veterans. It’s like a Mnstr dot com except its specifically for the military. Build a resume in the system and a job may even find you. This is a great resource so please pass this info on to family and friends- Thanks!

Employer Partnership of the Armed Forces of VA 12:53PM May 25, 2011

If you want to see the results of what happens when the wishes of the Tea Party (an organization backed by libertarian and Republican corporate interest groups) and the far right are granted wholesale, look to Florida. If all these tax cuts to corporations and the rich combined with cuts/privatization to healthcare and government really would stimulate the private sector to create jobs, then they would have done so by now. What happened instead was that the rich all pocketed the money and created zero new jobs. In fact, we lost jobs overall.
The fact that Florida occupies so many spots on the chart is not something that one should primarily attribute to illegal immigration (which is certainly a problem), or even the Obama administration. This is chiefly a failing at the state government level. Governor Rick Scott in conjunction with the Republican-dominated state legislature has systematically and deliberately established the conditions which got us here. Their latest step is to cut unemployment benefits on the grounds that "unemployment makes people lazy and unwilling to find new jobs." Well, the numbers in this report don't lie; there are no jobs to be had!
Perhaps there would be some new jobs had they not refused the funds allocated by the federal government (aka "the Obama administration") for construction of high-speed rail which would've created roughly 100k-140k new jobs. This money was already allocated and so refusing it had zero effect upon the national debt; the money simply went to other states instead. Perhaps there would be fewer unemployed had they not cut hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs--particularly in education--and slashed social benefits for the sake of offering hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts to the state's wealthiest citizens...of which Scott is one. (This we know, albeit not to what extent as he won't disclose his assets. Does he own stock in oil drilling equipment? WHY isn't he suing BP over that oil spill on behalf of the state, exactly?) Perhaps illegal immigration would be less of a problem if companies stopped knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. None of this happened.
Supposedly private business was going to pick up the slack for all these jobs cut to eliminate "wasteful big government spending." But they haven't done so, and the reason we're told is "we need to eliminate the corporate tax rate entirely." FL's corporate tax rate is only 5.5% (one of the lowest in the country)...but it's not like they even pay THAT.
We've been told this line about "the rich are the ones who create the jobs so don't tax them" for decades. But the wealth doesn't trickle down. They just keep it all since "they've got theirs, and who cares about anyone else."
Governor Scott and the FL legislature are at least hard at work on what they really care about: passing laws against redistricting and making it more difficult for those negatively affected by all these changes to even vote at all come next Election Day...

Daryl of FL 10:14AM May 25, 2011

Sun shine and blue skies. The best in the USA, however, there is so much compeition for jobs. I'd say anywhere from 500 to 800 people a day within the city and county of San Diego apply for 1 job depending upon what your field of expertise is. Too many people and not enough jobs to go in this great, sunshiine state. Go figure.
It has been said that San Diego is the best on the West coast in weather, but what good is wheather when all you can get is part time work or no work.
The one and only,
D. R.

D. R. of CA 2:22PM May 24, 2011

Hunter,
I think you took my response as giving a pass to prior administrations, I am not. in fact, when I was in graduate school (2002), I wrote a paper about the perils of repealing Gramm-Leach-Bliley. I was specifically commenting to Mary trying to pin this on Obama who wasn't even in national office at the time. You can slam the Bush admin for cheap money and loose oversight during the bubble, Clinton for repealing GLB and...I was a baby before that, but you get my point. Watch Inside Job (documentary, just won the Emmy) for the history on this.

Jason of FL 8:30AM May 24, 2011

Many of those areas -- i.e. all the California cities, Las Vegas, and all the Florida cities except Jacksonville -- have experienced huge influxes of legal and illegal immigrants. Here in SoCal, there seems to be plenty of work for Mexicans -- good work in remodeling, painting, some construction. Mexican contractors hire their own.

Mitchell Young of CA 1:07AM May 24, 2011

I had a gave up a good job in the dc area, just to be with my wife in fl if i only knew it would of beem this bad i would not gave up my job up now that im back in the dc area i cant get my job back. Tried getting a job down there is totally inpossilble at this time. So if you have a good job dont give it up for nobody, for no reason at all. I learned the hard way.2q

Lee of MD 4:38PM May 23, 2011

Your political bias is showing , and lets try being honest without the spin . The housing mess started back with Jimmy Carter and the community reinvestment act which the Clinton administration pushed harder . It involved Fannie and Freddie . Bush and the republicans warned SEVERAL times that Fannie and Freddie needed overhaul only to be told by the democrats , no problem with them , they are fine . Lets not forget , then as now , 4.00$ gal. gas , brought to us by the enviro wackos and the democrats . Don't forget the democrats ran the whole show since 2006 election .
I take it you're fine with waiting a decade to get out of this mess , Japan is still in a mess even without tsunami . Wake up !

Hunter of WI 9:08AM May 23, 2011

Mary, look at the list...those are all cities with once in a century housing collapses (save for Detroit which has some other problems). When did the housing market crash? Was Obama the president when the market blew up? Let's be honest about what happens when you pull $6 trillion of inflated home equity out of the economy. The second Obama tries to initiate principal writedowns, right wingers will call him Hitler or Stalin. I lived in Florida for most of my life and can tell you that at least 15-20 percent of that econonmy is based on the housing market. How do you expect to turn that around in less than a few years? It took Japan a decade? What's your solution?

Jason of 8:41AM May 23, 2011