Ten percent of Americans may be jobless by year's end

Associated Press ^ | March 12, 2009 | JEANNINE AVERSA

[george76]

The Other Unemployment Rate: U-6 at 14.8%

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[chrisser]

The rising joblessness reflects the pain that the housing, credit and financial crises – the worst since the 1930s –

Worst since the 30s or worse since Jimmy Carter?

I seem to remember things sucked pretty badly around 1976 and things don't seem nearly as bad now, at least not yet.

[river rat]

Unemployed? No problem...
Obama’s electorate and political base don’t need to work...

Why should anyone else?

Obama will bring HOPE, CHANGE and DISASTER.

[fieldmarshaldj]

YES ! WE ! CAN !

[Redleg Duke]

Who is John Galt?

[GOP_Lady]

I heard today that the unemployment rate during Carter’s term was 12%. I’ll research it now.

[GOP_Lady]

http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp

[familyop]

It could even be 5%. Yeah, that’s right. That’s the ticket: 5%

That’s fine, because we’re going to get new, loyal American business leadership (re. “important” constituents) and a real conservative political party in the near future.

Is Recession Preparing a New Breed of Survivalist? [Survival Today - an On going Thread #2]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2181392/posts

[Well over 4,000 comments.]

[NorCoGOP]

fears that the national jobless rate could hit 10 percent by year's end.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives took the unusual step of lowering the unemployment rate by taking time to honor the number Pi (3.141etc.....)

Thank goodness for the Democratic Leadership in this country. They are SO focused on the problem!

[george76]

[GOP_Lady]

Thanks!

[ikka]

Shadowstats.com has it as being about 19%, using the same method to compute unemployment as was used before Clinton changed it.

See: http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data

[VRWC For Truth]

20%

[Revolting cat!]

Optimists!

[george76]

Thanks.

http://www.shadowstats.com/charts_republish#emp

[TurtleUp]

I seem to remember things sucked pretty badly around 1976 and things don't seem nearly as bad now, at least not yet.

That's because of the "stimulus". Otherwise, we'd have another 4 million jobs lost. Dear Socialist Leader said it's true, so I believe him.

[Hot Tabasco]

things don't seem nearly as bad now, at least not yet.

I said this in an email to a friend just this morning. People in this country do not have any idea the extent of the unemployment problem here in Michigan. I had conversations yesterday with two friends I grew up with, C lost his job 2 weeks ago due to reduction in force at his company and J lost his job of 15 years last week. J's company is closing down for good in 30 days.

This is not a typical recession in Michigan which we went thru under Jimmy carter. Back in those days most companies were bloated with employees and survived the economic downturn by laying off employees and trimming costs. The company I worked for sold off its wheel and brake division resulting in a permanent loss of about 700 employees. The upswing of that was that our buyer was able to increase its jobforce down in Ohio at 3 different plants. For what its worth, those plants ultimately have been closed down.

That was then, what is happening now here in Michigan is that companies are not only laying off their employees but they are closing down completely with no hope of reopening their doors. That is bad, very, very bad.........

Both of my friends have resigned themselves to the fact that by the end of the year they are going to have to find employment out of state. Fortunately for them, J has management skills and C has programming skills in the tech industry.

Thats all fine and good for them but what is going to happen to the unskilled labor force who have lost their jobs? The jobs that nobody with skills were willing to do?

Anticipating the rush of certain FR people here to cry "move, do what you have to do you lazy so and so". Here is my question to them: How can you expect a non skilled laborer to move out of state in search of an equally non-skilled job when any location will certainly be filling jobs with its equally unskilled labor force in that location? And if by chance the unskilled Michigan worker does find an out of state job, how can he be expected to pay his rent in the new location while at the same time supporting his family back in Michigan while making non-skilled labor wages?

So you then ask why is his family remaining in Michigan. My answer is that he can't sell his home in Michigan for what its worth and certainly can't afford to purchase another home in whatever state he has moved to.......

[sgtyork]

Yes, having the mortgage crisis at the same time as increasing unemployment is going to freeze people in their location. It won’t be easy to move to another job. I was unemployed (until tomorrow) and thought about what it would take. Ugly.

I don’t think you are going to get the mean spirited remarks, you made the human costs too real. I just hope that the rest of the country can struggle along, but Obama thinks he’s the new Roosevelt.

[Free Vulcan]

‘74 and ‘80 weren’t that great either. The unemployment rate peaked at 11% in the ‘80 recession.

[Neidermeyer]

The Other Unemployment Rate: U-6 at 14.8%
*******************************************
I had to look up the term ...

The 8.1% official unemployment rate, up from 7.6% in January, only counts people who are available for work and actively looked for a job in the prior four weeks. The 14.8% figure (known as the “U-6” by the BLS) includes everyone in the 8.1% figure, plus people who say they want a job and looked for work recently, along with people working part-time because they couldn’t get a full-time schedule.