"confronting our challenges and building on our strengths"

The current economic downturn—often, and accurately, referred to as the Great Recession—has produced, by many measures, the worst economic conditions in the United States since the Great Depression. Like the rest of the nation, workers in Massachusetts have been hit hard. Still, even under these very challenging circumstances, the Massachusetts economy has fared better than most other states, outperforming the U.S. average by a considerable margin. In 2009, Massachusetts had an unemployment rate (8.2 percent) well below the national average (9.8 percent).

This is the unemployment introductory paragraph from the State of Working In MA 2010 report recently published. I would encourage reviewing the full report here.