According to the Washington Post… yes.
In 2000 and 2004, Florida was a bright spot on the nation’s economic landscape, reaping the rewards of a building boom that was drawing people to the state, filling government coffers and supplying jobs from construction to real estate sales to financial speculation. But Obama awoke Friday to a banner headline in the St. Petersburg Times declaring, “In Florida, it’s recession.”
The state’s economy contracted by 1.6 percent in April, May and June. The Labor Department reported on Wednesday that the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area recorded the second-largest jump in jobless rates in the nation in June, a 2.8 percent increase. The Naples metropolitan area ranked third, and the once booming Bradenton-Sarasota metropolitan area was fourth.
Second, third and fourth largest jumps in jobless rates? Perhaps the time has come to group Florida with Ohio and Naples with Flint, Michigan.