Actual unemployment rate hits a 68-year high!
NEW YORK - July 26, 2009 - Although you have to dig into the statistics to know it, unemployment in the United States is now worse than at any time since the end of the Great Depression.
From December 2007 - when the current Depression began - to May of this year, six million U.S. workers lost their jobs. The big three U.S. automakers are closing plants and letting white-collar workers go, too. Chrysler - the worst off of the three - will lay off one-quarter of its workforce even if it survives. Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar and giant banking conglomerate Citigroup have both laid off thousands of workers. Alcoa, the aluminum maker, has let workers go. Computer maker Dell and express shipper DHL have both canned many of their workers. Circuit City - the leading electronics retailer - went out of business, costing its 40,000 workers their jobs. Lawyers in large national firms are getting the ax. Even on Sesame Street, workers are losing their jobs.
The official unemployment rate hit 9.4% in May - already as high as the peak unemployment rates in all but the 1982 recession and the worst since World War II. Topping the 1982 recession’s peak rate of 10.8% is now distinctly possible. The current downturn has pushed unemployment rates up by more than any previous postwar recession.
The comprehensive U-6 unemployment rate adjusts the official rate by adding marginally attached workers and workers forced to work part time for economic reasons to the officially unemployed. To find the U-6 rate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics takes that higher unemployment count and divides it by the official civilian labor force plus the number of marginally attached workers.
Accounting for the large number of marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons raises the count of unemployed to 24 million workers for May 2009. Those numbers push up the U-6 unemployment rate to 15.9% or a seasonally adjusted rate of 16.4%.
From December 2007 - when the current Depression began - to May of this year, six million U.S. workers lost their jobs. The big three U.S. automakers are closing plants and letting white-collar workers go, too. Chrysler - the worst off of the three - will lay off one-quarter of its workforce even if it survives. Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar and giant banking conglomerate Citigroup have both laid off thousands of workers. Alcoa, the aluminum maker, has let workers go. Computer maker Dell and express shipper DHL have both canned many of their workers. Circuit City - the leading electronics retailer - went out of business, costing its 40,000 workers their jobs. Lawyers in large national firms are getting the ax. Even on Sesame Street, workers are losing their jobs.
The official unemployment rate hit 9.4% in May - already as high as the peak unemployment rates in all but the 1982 recession and the worst since World War II. Topping the 1982 recession’s peak rate of 10.8% is now distinctly possible. The current downturn has pushed unemployment rates up by more than any previous postwar recession.
The comprehensive U-6 unemployment rate adjusts the official rate by adding marginally attached workers and workers forced to work part time for economic reasons to the officially unemployed. To find the U-6 rate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics takes that higher unemployment count and divides it by the official civilian labor force plus the number of marginally attached workers.
Accounting for the large number of marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons raises the count of unemployed to 24 million workers for May 2009. Those numbers push up the U-6 unemployment rate to 15.9% or a seasonally adjusted rate of 16.4%.
