Continuing high unemployment weighs on incumbent politicians and on job-seeking citizens. A factor in its persistence emerges from a new study from the Brookings Institution, a study that shows the Raleigh-Cary metro area to good advantage.

The think tank, which analyzes economic data on metro areas nationwide, studied online job postings and matched them to local education levels. It found that there’s too often a mismatch between the amount of education that job openings require and workers’ actual education levels. Rightly or wrongly, a higher percentage of job openings require a bachelor’s degree than there are B.A. or B.S. degree holders in the workforce.

And where the mismatch is highest, the local economies are weak. Five struggling metros in Texas and California have the biggest gaps.

In contrast, well-educated Raleigh-Cary comes off very well, ranking fourth-best in the nation. (Tops are Madison, Wis., Honolulu and Provo-Orem, Utah. Washington, D.C., is tied with Raleigh-Cary.) That’s a degree of difference worth noting.