Unemployment rate is highest in 26 years

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Unemployment rate is highest in 26 years

By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The September unemployment numbers announced Friday were a reality check for anyone who was thinking that strong economic growth was just around the corner.

The nation's unemployment rate ticked up to 9.8 percent, its highest level in 26 years, as employers quickened the pace of layoffs, the government said in a worse-than-expected report.

U.S. employers shed 263,000 jobs in September, more than the 150,000 to 200,000 that forecasters had expected. Employment fell in manufacturing, construction, retail and, surprisingly, in government.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the number of unemployed Americans has risen from 7.6 million to 15.1 million. The unemployment rate has doubled to 9.8 percent — the highest since June 1983 — rising another tenth of a percentage point in September.

It was a lousy report from top to bottom, with the average workweek for production and nonsupervisory jobs falling slightly to 33 hours in September. That number should be going up in an economic recovery.

...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/76446.html

[AllentownJake]

1. We have solved none of the fundamental problems that caused this mess

What did congress think would happen when they through a whole bunch of money to the financial artist who caused the collapse? That they suddenly would grow morals and not bankrupt the American people?

:rofl:

[Hannah Bell]

2. They neglected to mention it's otherwise the highest since the Great Depression.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104719.html

1982-07-01 9.8
1982-07-01 9.8
1982-08-01 9.8
1982-09-01 10.1
1982-10-01 10.4
1982-11-01 10.8
1982-12-01 10.8
1983-01-01 10.4
1983-02-01 10.4
1983-03-01 10.3
1983-04-01 10.2
1983-05-01 10.1
1983-06-01 10.1
1983-07-01 9.4

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/UNRATE.txt

[Orwellian_Ghost]

13. And yet the figures stated don't tell the real story

The Real Unemployment Rate Hits a 68-Year High



When those adjustments are taken into account for May 2009, the unemployment rate soars to 16.4%. That is the highest rate since the BLS began calculating the U-6 rate in 1994. While not exactly comparable, it is also higher than the BLS’s earlier and yet broader adjusted unemployment rate called the U-7. The BLS began calculating the U-7 rate in 1976 but discontinued it in 1994 in favor of the U-6 rate. In the 1982 recession the U-7 reached 15.3%, its highest level. In fact, no bout of unemployment since the last year of the Great Depression in 1941 would have produced an adjusted unemployment rate as high as today’s.
Table 2: The May 2009 Unemployment Picture

Why is the real unemployment rate so much higher than the official, or U-3, rate? First, forced part-time work has reached its highest level ever, going all the way back to 1956 and including the 1982 recession. In May 2009, 8.8 million workers were forced to work part time for economic reasons. Forced part-timers are concentrated in retail, food services, and construction; about a quarter of them are young workers between 16 and 24. The number of discouraged workers is high today as well. In May, the BLS counted 2.2 million “marginally attached” workers. That matches the highest number since 1994, when the agency introduced this measure.

...

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2009/0709miller.html

[Le Taz Hot]

3. (off-topic)

Why would anyone Unrec this article? I don't get it. :wtf:

[Deja Q]

4. Dunno, but they should grow a pair and say why.

[blindpig]

5. Don't ya know...

the OP is a rightwing mole, according to the Reactionary Pod People.

k&r

[AllentownJake]

6. The Hero worship crowd

who are just as bad as freepers.

[Mari333]

7. The holidays are going to suck balls this year.

edit to add:

I havent seen any legislation damning the outsourcing of jobs for the last 26 yrs. as long as corporations continue to send jobs to slave wage countries, there wont be jobs here. oddly enough, there also wont be anyone left to buy their cheap shit.

[drexel dave]

8. they always suck balls

nt

[mule_train]

9. Sounds like we need more H-1b visas

as someone who's been fighting that for a long time, think how bad we'd be screwed if any of those proposed increases went through?

unfortunately, some did anyway through the back door - in 2008- a TN (NAFTA) 'status' visa increased from 1 to 3 years, so no one from mexico or canada needs an H-1b (freeing them up fro india and china)

an F1 (student) OPT training visa extension from12 to 29 months, again, making an H-1b unncessary - programmers guild fought this in court, but Obama's lawyers successfully defended it (was Bush's action originally) about 23,000 more visas


given the massive exemptions for 'non profit', educational and research even if deployed from a 'for profit' body shop, the true h-1b totals are way more than the 65,000 +20,000 ('masters degree only') h-1b

then, there's L1 visas, easily at 50,000+ per year, many think it's WAY more

all told, you have upwards of 200,000

through backdoor increases, exemptions, and just p;lain ignoring caps, they jacked up the total back to the old level of 195,000 per year, all the while lying that it's only 65,000, which would still be WAY TOO MANY when unemployment is the highest in 26 years

Why do Demopcrats put up with this?!?!?!

[TBF]

18. You're blaming workers for this mess?

nt

[Hidden Stillness]

10. Democratic Leadership had Better Start Facing This

Obama and fans have started a dangerous line of patter that is the same as the Bush/Cheney "support and spin everything no matter what it really is" behavior that we got for all those eight years. After pretending that "the recession is over" and "the economy is recovering" but that unemployment/joblessness "always lags behind" (a profoundly immoral statement if you think about it), and claiming that the newest unemployment figures "show that unemployment and job-loss are leveling off," now the new figures show that the rise is even worse; there were more job losses than expected.

I just heard on C-SPAN the new report on unemployment presented before the Joint Congressional Committee that Carolyn Maloney chairs, but she was not there, of course, because of the sudden death of her husband. No matter what the facts were, it was painted as "good"--the unemployment rate for temporary workers is even up; that was "good," although no possible reason why was given. Unlike the past several recessions, there is flat and dropping consumer spending--an alarming sign of actual Depression--but this was dispensed with, with the usual "they are holding on to thie money" because "low consumer confidence" crap. The only bright spot was the "Cash for Clunkers" program that helped the entire auto industry and others related to it, but they killed that, and refuse to face that the only thing that has helped anything for all these years--and the Midwest has been suffering high manufacturing unemployment for several years; this is not recent--has been a Government program of direct cash infusion.

Houses are not selling, foreclosures, bankruptcies and debt are all up, unemployment is up--there are no good signs. If Democrats keep pretending that things are good, when they are bad and getting worse, they will be playing all these games with only themselves listening, because they will have lost the entire country.

[mule_train]

11. 'unemployment lags behind' translated

we've rewarded the people who caused it

screw the people who have to pay for it

[AllentownJake]

12. Christmas will be the awakening

Everything in this country economically revolves around our holiday of mass consumption in order to celebrate the prince of peace.

If Christmas is bad for retailers, the front-line, than you will see people start to worry.

As for the democrats behavior, it isn't unusual. Admitting you did something wrong and changing direction is the hardest thing for a human being to do.

[kentuck]

14. 1983?

I remember that year. It was bad. It was blamed on Carter.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

15. Bumping

[HamdenRice]

16. And of course, it's the fault of the Democrats and Obama administration!

Too bad McCain didn't win!!!

Or David North (aka David Green) of Socialist Equality Party/World Socialist Web Site (formerly Socialist Workers Party)!!!

This is where the Glenn Beck right and Limbaugh left come together to blame the catastrophic effects of 8 years of Bush/Republican rule on 8 months of a Democratic administration.

[TBF]

17. Nobody said that Hamden.

Any thoughts as to whether the system itself is at fault? System meaning capitalism. Obama's just doing his job.

[HamdenRice]

20. Intended as humor, but incredibly nut case Trotskyites today claim unemployment is deliberate policy

No one can exaggerate the craziness or stupidity of the Trots. Right now there's a post from one of DU's other Trots claiming that increasing unemployment is the goal of the Democrats.

[GoCubsGo]

19. Just wait...

All those tax cuts for the wealthy that Bush and the republicans instituted are going to kick in and create all those jobs they're supposed to create! Really! Just you wait and see!