This makes it 41 straight months that the official unemployment rate has been above 8 percent.
According to the June 2012 unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the more inclusive unemployment rate (U6), which includes “marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons,” has been above 14 percent even longer, for 42 months.
In June, the private nonfarm sector added a paltry 84,000 new jobs, while government employment fell again, by 4,000 (losing 7,000 jobs at the federal level, while state government lost 1,000 and local governments actually picked up 4,000). Total nonfarm employment therefore rose only 80,000.
Meanwhile, the average (mean) duration of unemployment rose to 39.9 weeks. That’s because the percentage of those who have been unemployed for 15 weeks or more rose to 56 percent.
So, the question once again: how is this anything other than a Second Great Depression?
[...] good jobs for American workers. First, it’s failing to provide jobs, since the official unemployment rate has been above 8 percent for 40 months now (and the U6 unemployment rate has been above 14 [...]