Even more telling has been the remarkable pattern of the local unemployment rate. After averaging more than 1 percentage point above the national average in the 1980s, joblessness in the Cleveland area fell under the US average in 1990 and has remained at, or below, the national benchmark every year since.
The recent prosperity of the region reverses the previous twelve-year period of economic decline relative to the nation in a rather dramatic way. This decline, not so flatteringly referred to by some as the “rust-bowl era”, took its toll on labor and business alike.