You might ask: WHY do distressed areas tend to stay distressed? Because lack of jobs leads to lower job skills and social problems; out-migration is selective and removes some younger, more skilled workers; distress undermines local tax base, reducing public services https://twitter.com/UpjohnInstitute/status/1308758263580639232

And what is evidence for persistence? As report reviews, between 2000 and 2014-18, correlation in prime-age employment rate in local labor markets is 0.88.

Also, locally-severe recessions are persistent. Study by @BHershbein & @BryanAStuart shows that local areas w/ 5% more job loss than U.S. during recessions have, close to a decade later, an employment rate lower by 2 percentage points. https://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/325/

So, even if a local area has potential with sufficient resources to reinvent itself, it may lack tax base to attract the jobs the build the job skills to attract still more jobs, etc.

& COVID-19 recession likely to follow this rule. The areas that are hit hardest (more virus or more reliance on hard-hit industries such as travel/tourism) will as a result have employment problems and social problems even 20 years from now -- unless we intervene now.