Unemployment Tops 10%

Yikes.

The government reported Friday that unemployment rate spiked to 10.2%, up from 9.8% in September. It is the highest that this rate has been since April 1983. Economists had forecast an increase to 9.9%.

There was also a net loss of 190,000 jobs in October, according to the Labor Department, an improvement from a revised estimate of 219,000 job losses in September. However, economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of only 175,000 jobs in October. This was the 22nd straight month of job losses.

Government efforts to end job losses have had limited effects, although the Obama administration estimated last month that 640,000 jobs were created or saved by the federal stimulus package passed earlier this year. But that’s modest compared to the 7.3 million jobs that have been lost by the economy since the start of 2008.

And, of course, we know that the 640,000 figure is BS. 

UPDATE: BTW, remember this from Innocent Bystanders?

Remember that this chart was the one the President Obama published in order to justify the stimulus bill.  While some are engaging in revisionist history about the goal of the stimulus bill, the White House was very clear at the time that it was supposed to stop the hemorrhaging of jobs.  It hasn’t.  It’s a failure.  Better to man up and admit it so we can move on rather than continue to engage in fantasy.