More Great Economic News: Unemployment Actually Near 17%

Despite the recent claims of Barack Obama and Joe Biden that the stimulus is working, total unemployment, including those so discouraged that they have stopped looking for work, is in the 17% range.

According to the study, nearly 17 percent of Americans are unemployed, discouraged from seeking work or underemployed. That's up from 10% last year.

"The bad news on unemployment is well-known. The risk of job loss has been quite stunning," said Rutgers professor Douglas Kruse, a labor economist who created the scorecard.

Kruse said some workers are adjusting by taking part-time jobs. According to the study, nearly 20 percent of workers have part-time jobs.

The bad news just keeps on coming:

The Rutgers labor scorecard offered a mix of good and bad news:

From January to June, there were 16.1 million new unemployment claims, a 72 percent increase from 2008.

More than 1.2 million workers were in extended mass layoffs, more than double the 2008 figure.

Minorities and people with disabilities were harder hit by job market stresses. The unemployment rate is 8.6 percent for whites; 14.5 percent for blacks; 12.3 percent for Hispanics and 15.1 percent for people with disabilities.

More than 6 percent of the work force wants to work full time, but is working part time because they can't find full-time work.

Average inflation-adjusted earnings rose 5 percent from 2008 for non-supervisory workers, and median earnings for all wage and salary workers increased 3 percent.

The federal minimum wage is now $7.25 an hour, or 9 percent higher than in 1999 after adjusting for inflation.

In 1999, women who worked full-time made 24 percent less than men on average. That gap has closed to 20 percent.

Black and Hispanic full-time workers earned 24 percent and 34 percent less than white workers a decade ago, respectively. Those figures have closed to 22 percent and 28 percent respectively.

This is very interesting to hear given that Obama had said that if Congress passed the stimulus bill in a hurry that unemployment would not go above 8%. Also, Biden has recently stated that the stimulus bill is working as planned.

My gosh, if this qualifies as "working," I would hate to see what they consider a train wreck.

Do not be surprised to see a significant pull back by the market to reflect the continued dismal employment picture.