By DAVID LEONHARDT
For all the pain caused by the Great Recession, the job market still was not in as bad shape as it had been during the depths of the early 1980s recession — until now.
With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression.
In all, more than one out of every six workers — 17.5 percent — were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1 percent, in December 1982.
This includes the officially unemployed, who have looked for work in the last four weeks. It also includes discouraged workers, who have looked in the past year, as well as millions of part-time workers who want to be working full time.
23 minutes ago · Afghanistan hits back at U.N. and foreign criticism
Sat Nov 7, 2009 6:42am EST
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan accused the United Nations on Saturday of intervening in the formation of President Hamid Karzai's next cabinet, less than a week into his new term.
Since being re-elected in a controversial poll in which a fraud investigation rejected more than a million of his votes, Karzai has been under intense pressure from his Western backers to introduce swift anti-corruption reforms.
The
2 hours ago · Ecuador has introduced electricity rationing after a drought led to acute water shortages at the country's main hydro-electric power plant at Paute.
There have already been blackouts in the capital, Quito, and the Pacific port city of Guayaquil, officials say.
They say power to residential areas will be cut by between 5% and 10%, but businesses will not be affected.
The drought, which has hit the Andes region, is the worst in four decades, correspondents say.
The Paute plant, in east
7 hours ago · WASHINGTON — Capping months of months of struggle, House Democrats cleared an abortion-related impasse blocking a vote on sweeping health care legislation late Friday and officials expressed optimism they had finally lined up the support needed to pass President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.
A vote was expected on the legislation on Saturday, after Obama’s scheduled midmorning trip to the Capitol complex to make one final pitch for its approval. The bill is designed to spread coverage
7 hours ago · By Henry J. Gomez, The Plain Dealer
November 06, 2009, 9:53PM
Thomas Ondrey/The Plain DealerCleveland
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- ...
WOIO Channel 19 first reported that Lori Frazier, Jackson’s niece, moved in with Sowell in 2005 about a month after he was released from a 15-year prison sentence for attempted rape. She moved out last year.
Frazier said she was a drug addict and used drugs with Sowell. But she had no idea he could have been a serial killer.
"I want to know why, why would
8 hours ago · Mrs Munley was one of the "first responders" who returned fire after army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan went on the rampage at the sprawling Fort Hood base in Texas.
She shot Hasan four times but was herself wounded in the gun battle. Her condition is now stable, according to military officials.
The police officer has been praised for her bravery and for preventing what could have been an even worse massacre....
8 hours ago · A Wisconsin man was sentenced late today in federal court in Jackson to three years in prison for making a threat on the Internet to assassinate then-President-elect Barack Obama.
Steven Joseph Christopher, 42, faced a maximum five years in prison.
After a nearly daylong sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate imposed the sentence.
Christopher pleaded guilty in July after Wingate agreed with him that he was competent to stand trial, although the U.S. attorney's office said
10 hours ago · By MIKE GLOVER AP Political Writer
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) An aide said Friday that lawyer Roxanne Conlin intends to seek the Democratic nomination for Senate in 2010 and the right to oppose Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who is seeking a sixth Senate term.
Mark Daley, a senior adviser to Conlin, said Conlin will announce next week she's entering the Senate race.
The 65-year-old Conlin was the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 1982 and has served as the Iowa Democratic Party chairwom
11 hours ago · The government of President Álvaro Uribe asked Spain to explore "mechanisms to verify and monitor the situation" on the border with Venezuela, where tension has arisen over the last few days, the Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs said Friday in a statement.
Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermúdez contacted his Spanish counterpart Miguel Angel Moratinos to make the request, the official communiqué said, as reported by AFP.
Last September, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zap
11 hours ago · U.S. Sen. Grassley: Pushes immigration authorities to hold employers accountable for H-1B Visa fraud
11/6/2009
WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley today pressed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to step up its commitment to end the fraud and abuse of the H-1B visa program.
Grassley noted that within the last year, Citizenship and Immigration Services personnel have made an effort to identify employers who may have misrepresented their hiring intentions, but it appears that very f
12 hours ago · Orlando, Florida (CNN) -- The suspect in Friday's shooting of six people in a downtown high-rise is a 40-year-old "man with economic woes that include a recent bankruptcy filing, federal records show.
In his filing last May for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, under which he sought to have his assets liquidated and his debts discharged, Jason S. Rodriguez listed his assets at $4,675 and his liabilities at $89,873.31.
His 2002 Nissan XTerra with 110,000 miles represented $4,000 of those assets. His pe
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