Click here.] The Black Belt’s Prime Age Employment Gap rate – 12% – is double the rate of other counties in Alabama, per American Community Survey data analyzed by the Education Policy Center.

I know Alabama pretty well, frequently travel the state and have a job where I study Alabama extensively, and I still struggled when I looked at a map and tried to identify non-local counties.

Mobile County’s rate in the ACS data was 17.6%, above the three-year state average, as were Jefferson County’s rate of 15.9% and Montgomery County’s of 19.6%.