Could After dismal jobs report, unemployment rate could hit postwar high?
It’s beginning to look like America’s unemployment rate is going to get worse before it gets better. That’s a political problem. Now that the rate is officially in double-digits, the pressure is certain to build on President Obama and Congress to find ways to create new jobs. Economically, however, the picture isn’t quite as scary as it looks. Last month, the unemployment rate reached 10.2 percent, up from 9.8 percent in September, according to the jobs report released by the US Department of Labor Friday. The key figure for the Obama administration is probably 10.8 percent – the postwar record set in late 1982. If unemployment reaches that level again, then Republicans and, perhaps many Americans, too, would begin to blame the administration for the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. “Its going to put more pressure” on President Obama and the Democrats, says John Canally, an economist with LPL Financial in Boston. For months now, economists have predicted that unemployment
