We’ve crossed the psychological barrier and this spells bad news for Dems unless they can turn it around in the next couple months. Because this is the highest rate since 1983 and you’ll be hearing that time and time again in the next month.
Here’s more about those numbers:
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates [...]

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been posting a lot in the past couple weeks and that’s because the day job has been VERY consuming…but in a good way.
Basically, over the past year I’ve been working on developing a new website for AMC Theatres and it just launched Monday. On it you can find movie [...]

Numbers just came out today and in July the number was 247,000. This is obviously disappointing because the numbers had been consistently dropping since the beginning of the year and this uptick was not expected.
More from Reuters:
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected non-farm payrolls to drop 180,000 in September and the unemployment rate to rise [...]

And the unemployment rate dropped to 9.4%.
This is pretty significant for a few reasons.
First, there’s just the psychological effect of 10% unemployment. The media had been positioning that as the dreaded magic number and now it appears that we’ll never reach it.
Second, economists projected 325,000 job losses for July, so coming in 80,000 below is [...]

If we’re headed towards economic recovery, the path is unlikely to be a smooth one. At least that’s what June’s unemployment numbers indicate as the nation lost 467,000 jobs, more than 100,000 above estimates.
With unemployment now at 9.5%, a 26 year high, most economists foresee double-digit unemployment before the end of the year with numbers [...]

Solar Energy: “We’re trying to lay a foundation for a new economy…We are investing not in digging more oil wells but in building more wind farms, investing in solar energy….We are going to have an economy that [is] not based on a bubble.” (Media Teleconference, 6/8/09)
This Tuesday, Joe Biden will be traveling to a solar [...]

Hello this is Mike Fritz from the American News Project. We have a new story out that focuses on those most affected by the bailout of General Motors: laid off autoworkers.
It examines one of the central tensions in the public takeover of the company: Should federal dollars be spent building a lean, [...]

As you may recall, on the campaign trail, Joe Biden was heralded as “head of the Middle Class taskforce” – whose activities can be viewed here.
Yet the question remains: What has Joe Biden done for the Middle Class?
Several months ago, I checked the Middle Class Task Force site only to find a discussion of ways [...]

So let’s get this straight…
$87 billion of the $787 billion has already been spent in the past 3.5 months, and the monthly unemployment claims were cut in half last month (when compared to the previous 6 months) and the stimulus isn’t working?
This is in response to Republican lawmakers, specifically Sarah Palin, continuing to push the [...]

While the number of layoffs in May fell below expectations, the unemployment rate has now risen to 9.4%, a 25 year high. With 14.5 million Americans unemployed and countless others underemployed, any full recovery will have to be a long one.
Many economists believe the jobless rate will hit 10 percent by the end of this [...]

In a bid to survive bankruptcy, Chrsyler is closing nearly 800 dealerships, a full quarter of the company’s dealers. The dealers themselves had no say.
While bankruptcy may be a better long-term solution for Chrysler than continued government bailouts, the short-term will not be pretty. Car dealerships provide a lot of jobs and a lot of [...]

While attending the Offshore Technology Conference earlier this week (on sponsorship by the American Petroleum Institute), one truth became very apparent: opening up the outer continental shelf to oil and gas exploration would create a lot of jobs.
Right now, our government is spending hundreds of billions in an effort to revitalize the economy, but President [...]

This is actually good news since folks were expecting 620,000 jobs lost. Still, even if this begins to slow down even more, we’re likely to see double digit unemployment before this is all over. Because the unemployment rate is at 8.9% right now.
Also, let’s not forget the the underemployment numbers…
If laid-off workers who have given [...]

They were polled and that’s their number. Personally, I think 9.8% is a rosy prediction. More on that later.
From USA Today:
The unemployment rate will peak at 9.8%, according to their median forecast, up a full percentage point from the prior survey in January. Twenty-one economists predict the unemployment rate will top out at 10% or [...]

And Pontiac will vanish.
The carnage continues…
DETROIT – General Motors Corp. could be majority owned by the federal government under a massive restructuring plan laid out Monday that will cut 21,000 U.S. factory jobs by next year and phase out the storied Pontiac brand.
The plan, which includes an offer to swap roughly $27 billion in bond [...]

First, thanks to Calculated Risk, here’s what this look like when put into historical context…

Whenever I see a graph like that it makes me cringe, but what goes up must come down eventually.
Now, the details…
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 4 was 6,022,000, an increase of 172,000 from [...]

From The Department of Labor…
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 28 was 5,840,000, an increase of 95,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 5,745,000.
The 4-week moving average was 5,647,500, an increase of 146,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 5,500,750.
So yes, 5.84 million is an [...]

Following up on my previous post about those awful underemployment numbers, Naked Capitalism agrees that the 15.6% number is definitely a depression type stat.
However, Robert Reich says we’re now in a depression and we’ll need more stimulus…

Capital markets may or may not unfreeze under the combined heat of the Treasury and the Fed, but [...]

The most accurate gauge of the employment picture (referred to as U6) is getting a lot worse…

One thing to take into consideration is that this graph does go back to 1995 so the fact that it’s going straight up like isn’t as scary as you’d think.
Still, it ain’t good.
This is due to many factors, [...]

Right now it’s the biggest one month drop in American history, and it’s up by about 50,000 over February’s record numbers.
From Reuters:
Private employers cut jobs by a record 742,000 in March versus a 706,000 revised cut in February that was originally reported at 697,000 jobs, said ADP, which has been carrying out the survey since [...]