Official unemployment in Elbert County is 6.7% of a 12,991 person labor force, or about 870 people. By extending the historical [before the age of Obama] relationship between labor force and total population (yellow lines), we see an additional underemployed number of approximately 2,000 people. So if we add those 2,000 back to the official labor force of 12,991, this yields 2,870 unemployed over a labor force of 14,991 for a real unemployment rate in Elbert County of 19% – about 3 times the official rate.
Coincidentally, statewide Colorado, last year the number of TANF families went up 19% from 37,607 to 44,639. Meanwhile Wyoming saw a decrease and North Dakota saw a substantial decrease.