Though 2014 brought record-breaking stock performances, unemployment that was the lowest since 2008 and the best year for job growth since the turn of the millennium, the rising economic tide has not lifted all ships as some U.S. counties are still floundering, according to a report released Monday by the National Association of Counties.

A county-by-county breakdown of local economic performance was issued Monday in the association's 2014 County Economic Tracker. The study spans all 3,069 U.S. counties and suggests the majority of local economies have not fully returned to pre-recession stability.

“The U.S. economy doesn’t happen at the abstract macroeconomic level. It happens on the ground, where businesses are located and where Americans live and work,” says Emilia Istrate, the association's director of research. “County economies are building blocks of the regional economies, state economies and national economy.”



A reported 95 percent of counties have yet to see unemployment rise to pre-recession levels, according to the study.

Graph courtesy of Emilia Istrate and Nicholas Lyell; Source: National Association of Counties of Moody's Analytics 2014 Data

The association's report, based on data obtained from Moody's Investors Service, breaks down local economic performance into four major categories: gross domestic product, employment totals, unemployment rates and home pricing. The findings for 2014 were compared to pre-recession figures to get a feel for which local economies have recovered best since the Great Recession.

“The national numbers show growth continued in 2014, but it still remains fragile and sluggish in different parts of the country,” Istrate says. “On the positive side, we find out that 72 percent of county economies recovered on at least one of the indicators we analyzed.”



Only 65 counties in the country could claim full economic recovery at the end of 2014. Twenty-four counties in North Dakota and 15 in Texas made up 60 percent of local economies considered "fully recovered" in all four economic categories, according to the report. Texas and North Dakota rank first and second, respectively, in terms of statewide oil production in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.





Economic recovery since the Great Recession has been prominent in Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota, the nation's three biggest oil-producing states.

Graph courtesy of Emilia Istrate and Nicholas Lyell; Source: National Association of Counties of Moody's Analytics 2014 Data



Every county in North Dakota saw full pre-recession recovery in at least two of the study’s benchmarks, making it the study’s most fully recovered state. Arizona, meanwhile, saw only two of its 15 counties recover in any category. And only five of Maine’s 16 counties recovered in any category. “We’ve seen an uneven recovery. If you just look at the national numbers, you think the situation is rosy all across the country,” Istrate says. “This sluggish and uneven recovery explains why everyday-Americans do not feel the good national economic numbers. They feel the economy where they live.” The association's report categorizes counties by size. “Large” counties are home to more than 500,000 residents, “medium-sized” counties contain 50,000 to 500,000 citizens and “small” counties are made up of less than 50,000 people.



A reported 63 percent of county economies saw more job growth in 2014 than they did the year before.

Graph courtesy of Emilia Istrate and Nicholas Lyell; Source: National Association of Counties of Moody's Analytics 2014 Data

None of the nation’s 124 large economies had recovered in all four categories, though they accounted for 57 percent of an estimated 2 million net jobs gained in 2014. Another 150,000 jobs came from small economies.

A reported 130 counties reached pre-recession employment levels in 2014, but job growth itself was most pronounced in middle-sized counties. Sixty-five percent of mid-sized counties saw higher levels of job growth than they did in 2013.

The Labor Department on Friday announced national unemployment in December had fallen to 5.6 percent, its lowest level since June 2008. But the association study suggests 95 percent of U.S. counties have yet to see unemployment drop to pre-recession totals, though Istrate said the vast majority of counties saw improved unemployment in 2014.







