The metro areas with the lowest and highest unemployment In June 2019, Ames, Iowa, had one of the lowest unemployment in the United States at 2.3 percent of the workforce. At the other end of the scale was El Centro, California, with 18.6 percent of its workforce unemployed. In the depth of the 2008–2009 recession, the unemployment rate in Ames peaked at 5.7 percent. In El Centro, it peaked at 30.3 percent.

How would you explain the difference in the unemployment rates in Ames and El Centro in June 2019? Why is the difference almost certainly not explained by different cyclical unemployment rates?