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Last week President Obama’s speech and proposals for job creation provided plenty of fodder for political talking heads. Development Seed jumped into the conversation by publishing an interactive map comparing recovery act spending to unemployment rates in every county in the United States. Click on any county in the map (embedded below) to see the change in unemployment rate from June 2010 to June 2011 along with the per capita recovery act spending in that county.

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This map doesn’t provide a complete picture of the impact of Recovery Act spending, but it does provide a good jumping-off point for classroom conversations about economic policies and their impact on Americans. You might ask your students to research and find other factors contribute to an increase or decrease in unemployment in the counties in which they live.