Ballard County, KY: 9 findings, 1 at an alert level, 2 at a watch level and 6 noted

9 findings fired for Ballard County, KY this run, against a typical home value of $140,757 in August 2026 and covered employment of 1,832 in 2026 Q1.

This is the economist lens: Macro, regional and labour economists, journalists It keeps the findings whose subject matches that interest and drops the rest, so it is a subset of the full brief and never a different set of numbers. The full brief is the canonical version of this page.

9 findings #

currentretrieved 2026-10-06

  1. alertBallard County, KY's covered employment is -6.7% against a year earlier, an alert level here: covered employment at least 3 percent below the same quarter a year earlier (BLS QCEW over-the-year percent change, as published; convention chosen for this dashboard, not an official level). The previous published period is not in this table, so this is a standing level rather than a change.

    Period 2026 Q1.
    Show the arithmetic
    • test: jobs.yoy.emp = -6.7 <= -3

    BLS QCEW over-the-year percent change, as published; convention chosen for this dashboard, not an official level

  2. watchBallard County, KY's covered employment is -6.7% against a year earlier, a watch level here: covered employment below the same quarter a year earlier (BLS QCEW over-the-year percent change, as published; not an official level). The previous published period is not in this table, so this is a standing level rather than a change.

    Period 2026 Q1.
    Show the arithmetic
    • test: jobs.yoy.emp = -6.7 < 0

    BLS QCEW over-the-year percent change, as published; not an official level

  3. watchBallard County, KY's average weekly wage is -1.1% against a year earlier, a watch level here: average weekly wage below the same quarter a year earlier, before inflation (BLS QCEW over-the-year percent change, as published, nominal dollars; convention chosen for this dashboard, not an official level). The previous published period is not in this table, so this is a standing level rather than a change.

    Period 2026 Q1.
    Show the arithmetic
    • test: jobs.yoy.avgWeeklyWage = -1.1 < 0

    BLS QCEW over-the-year percent change, as published, nominal dollars; convention chosen for this dashboard, not an official level

  4. noteBallard County, KY's covered employment was 6.7% lower than the same quarter a year earlier in 2026 Q1, on BLS QCEW's published over-the-year change.

    Period 2026 Q1.
    Show the arithmetic
    • -6.7 % = BLS QCEW over-the-year percent change for 2026 Q1, as published
    • the newest QCEW file carries no year-earlier level, so no move from one level to another is printed

    BLS QCEW over-the-year percent change, as published

  5. noteBallard County, KY's average weekly wage was 1.1% lower than the same quarter a year earlier in 2026 Q1, on BLS QCEW's published over-the-year change.

    Period 2026 Q1.
    Show the arithmetic
    • -1.1 % = BLS QCEW over-the-year percent change for 2026 Q1, as published
    • the newest QCEW file carries no year-earlier level, so no move from one level to another is printed

    BLS QCEW over-the-year percent change, as published

  6. noteBallard County, KY's covered employment of -6.7% ranks 5th of 5 counties in the Paducah metro, against a median of +0.0%.

    Period 2026 Q1.
    Show the arithmetic
    • 0 on the 0-to-100 scale across 5 counties in the Paducah metro that published jobs.yoy.emp

    position among the entities that published this metric this period; not an official level

  7. noteBallard County, KY's covered employment of -6.7% ranks 117th of 120 Kentucky counties, against a median of +0.1%.

    Period 2026 Q1.
    Show the arithmetic
    • 3 on the 0-to-100 scale across 120 Kentucky counties that published jobs.yoy.emp

    position among the entities that published this metric this period; not an official level

  8. noteBallard County, KY's covered employment of -6.7% ranks 3,117th of 3,221 US counties, against a median of -0.2%.

    Period 2026 Q1.
    Show the arithmetic
    • 3 on the 0-to-100 scale across 3221 US counties that published jobs.yoy.emp

    position among the entities that published this metric this period; not an official level

  9. noteBallard County, KY's average weekly wage of $1,240 ranks 12th of 120 Kentucky counties, against a median of $953.

    Period 2026 Q1.
    Show the arithmetic
    • 91 on the 0-to-100 scale across 120 Kentucky counties that published jobs.avgWeeklyWage

    position among the entities that published this metric this period; not an official level

A lens narrows which numbers are shown, not which holes are admitted to: a withheld figure or a pending release survives every lens, because a gap is a fact about the place rather than about one reader's subject.

Subscribe to this lens #

currentretrieved 2026-10-06

The same narrowed findings as a feed.

Sources #

  • publishedQuarterly Census of Employment and WagesU.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsopen the source
    area 21007, all ownerships, all industries · period 2026-Q1 · retrieved 2026-10-06
  • publishedZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    County_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv · period 2026-08 · retrieved 2026-10-06
  • estimateZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-06 · month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns
  • estimateZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-06 · momentum = Σ wᵢ · clip(changeᵢ / scaleᵢ, −1, 1) / Σ wᵢ over the terms present; weights and scales: home value 1-yr change 0.3 (±10%), rent 1-yr change 0.15 (±10%), jobs over-the-year change 0.3 (±3%), avg weekly wage over-the-year change 0.25 (±6%)
  • estimateQuarterly Census of Employment and WagesU.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-06 · typical home value / (average weekly wage × 52); one average covered job, not a household

Citations

  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. series area 21007, all ownerships, all industries. period 2026-Q1. https://data.bls.gov/cew/data/api/2026/1/area/21007.csv. accessed 2026-10-06.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). series County_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv. period 2026-08. https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zhvi/County_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv. accessed 2026-10-06.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. accessed 2026-10-06. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. accessed 2026-10-06. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: momentum = Σ wᵢ · clip(changeᵢ / scaleᵢ, −1, 1) / Σ wᵢ over the terms present; weights and scales: home value 1-yr change 0.3 (±10%), rent 1-yr change 0.15 (±10%), jobs over-the-year change 0.3 (±3%), avg weekly wage over-the-year change 0.25 (±6%).
  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. https://www.bls.gov/cew/. accessed 2026-10-06. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: typical home value / (average weekly wage × 52); one average covered job, not a household.

What these numbers are not

  • The newest BLS QCEW file carries no year-earlier level, only the over-the-year percent change BLS publishes itself. Every employment and wage comparison here states that published change; none of them is a move from one level to another, because the two levels are not both in the file.
  • A percentile here is a min-max scaling of average rank across the entities that published the metric this period: the smallest published value scores 0 and the largest scores 100. It is not the share of entities below the value, and entities that did not publish the metric are counted in neither the rank nor its denominator.
  • The named indicators shown beside this brief are national or basin-level series, not measurements of Ballard County, KY; 30-year fixed mortgage rate (watch), Los Angeles + Long Beach container volume, annual (watch), Shanghai to Los Angeles container rate (watch) and WTI crude oil, spot (watch) are at a watch or alert level. They are context.
  • The occupation mix is the 37140 metro area's, from the bundled BLS OEWS release: OEWS does not publish a county table.
  • Water rows are everything within 75 km of this place's internal point (150 km for reservoirs), not everything inside its boundary: lib/water searches discs, and every row prints its own distance.
  • Server report: satellite turbidity is only computed in a browser, so that term is absent here.
  • Stress uses 2 of 4 terms (drought, quality); missing terms are left out, not assumed.
  • Groundwater has no trend term: one latest level cannot say whether an aquifer is being drawn down.
  • Obligations are what agencies committed in FY2026 by place of performance: not outlays, and not the recipient's own location.
  • FY2026 closed 6 days ago; agencies report with up to a 45-day lag, so totals are still filling in.
  • The indicator block is the NATIONAL set, filtered only by lens. None of these series is keyed to this place: they are United States, gauge, single-state or port series and they are shown as context, not as this place's own readings.

Page assembled 2026-10-06T11:36:42.001Z. Place identity tables pulled 2026-10-01.