back to article US jobless rate climbs again in August

The unemployment rate continues to edge up in the United States, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting that over 14.9 million people who want to work can't find it. The unemployment rate is now at 9.7 per cent as of the end of August, the highest since 1983, and it is very likely that the number of unemployed will …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The politicians are in denial

    The clowns in Washington are in denial. They keep trying to spin the numbers to talk the U.S. out of an economic depresssion but it ain't working. In fact not only did new unemployment claims increase, the revised, i.e. actual numbers for July were increased by 90,000. Those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits aren't counted so the situation is really bad and getting worse by the day in spite of the tripe from DC.

    There are no jobs to speak of for the unemployed so you are SOL when the unemployment benefits expire. There are millions now who are without any unemployment beneifts and millions more who will be by years end. Life is lavish on Capitol Hill however and funded by tax payer dollars. Unfortunately those who still have a job are paying for the politicians to live high on the hog. Tax revenue in the U.S. is the lowest it's been in 32 years because true unemployment is far in excess of 20% nationwide. In some ares of the U.S. there is 30% unemployment and it is getting worse by the day. California and other states are bankrupt yet everything is just fine at Bama's house.

  2. Mike Hebel
    Unhappy

    And myself now among those...

    I just got let go literally yesterday - "Your position has been eliminated."

    The only saving grace of all this is that cashing my 401k should get rid of all of our personal debt and allow us to have just the house as a monetary responsibility. So I don't have to find a high paying job just ANY job.

    Usually though the biggest thing those figures don't cover is people who no longer are looking for work. Once you cease to be on unemployment you fall off of a lot of lists.

    It's almost like being an unperson in some ways.

  3. Adam C 1
    Thumb Down

    Unfortunately...

    Me too. Compulsory redundancy. Unfortunately I only work for a small firm, and it was 11 months, so no recompense for me I'm afraid!

  4. gollux
    Happy

    Hawking hairballs in the US...

    Saw the bubble burst coming 2 1/2 years ago, worked hard to be debt free and succeeded.

    Experienced wage reductions 1 year ago as an experiment by management to save the company.

    Facing being health insurance free soon as a further management experiment in keeping the lights on.

    If that doesn't work, will probably be employment free by mid year 2010. And friends who are in that situation have been looking for a year now with no prospects.

    Then its "Brother can you spare a dime" and selling pencils on the street corner.

    All together now, a one and a two and a three, "Keep on the Sunny Side..."

  5. shawnfromnh
    Flame

    Offshoring

    The simple answer to this problem is to stop offshoring jobs and companies and start making goods in the US again. Because of multinationals corps, walmart, and wallstreet, corporations slowly started offshoring jobs then it increased till it reached a tipping point where so many people were laid off and weren't shopping that profits actually started leveling off even with the low wages and lack of environmental and labor laws. Now they are actually making less and all because shortsighted and greedy corporations thought this was a great idea.

    Now the only answer is for them to move back and reopen those factories since without them the consumer base will continue to fall since underemployed and laidoff workers do not buy TV's, computers, or anything else that is not absolutely necessary.

    The people that run and manage these companies are supposed to be geniuses in business but apparently that doesn't include common sense in any way.

    BTW I am not laid off and have not been buying NEW products like TV's and computers. Since I lost 3 jobs to offshoring in the electronic industry in the past 4 years I like others refuse to buy new products from US companies that manufacture them in China or Mexico. I wonder how long it'll take for these companies to realize that there are millions of people boycotting these imports in the US and until they open some domestic factories we refuse to give on dollar toward their profit margins.

    On another note I have recently purchased an almost new 27" TV for $75 and a 2.19 Ghz PC with 1.5MB of pc2100 for $100 so I'm not suffering in the least from this boycott and I actually have more than I had before it started.

    Lastly and I'm sure anyone that has played the original sim city knows the answer to this.

    "What happens to a country with little or no factory base?" It fails, it simply fails.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Scary

    In my adult life this is my third recession, and yet the only one that comes close to this was the '82 recession when I was in junior high and too young to clue in to it all. I have a job, and for the near future I think I'll be okay, but near future anymore is only a year or so.

    This is by far the worst I've seen it, I know several people including family members who have been out of work for a year or more, and even part time jobs are hard to come by. As for how these industries are being counted in nonsensical ways they're probably doing it by SIC code. The true unemployment is much higher as it doesn't count people who've given up, fallen off the radar, or are underemployed.

    As with AC #1, Washington doesn't have a clue, and is spending like a college student with their first credit card. I have a scary feeling the economy will start to recover on it's own, but will start to collapse again and worse as all this money printing and check writing starts coming due. The media will keep spinning it like everything's fine, while I think people are finally waking up that what is happening is not an intent to fix the situation but an ideological power grab. Cross your fingers and hold on to what you got.

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