Unemployment Rate Hits 9.5 Percent As Economy Sheds 467,000 Jobs In June

The U.S. economy lost 467,000 jobs in June as the national unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, the government announced on Thursday morning. While that's only one-tenth of a percentage point from May, the current rate is the highest rate in 26 years.

Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, said that the loss of 6.5 million jobs since the start of the recession combined with the growth of the workforce means that the gains of the previous business cycle have been completely blown away.

"This is the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all jobs growth from the previous business cycle, a devastating benchmark for the workers of this country and a testament to both the enormity of the current crisis and to the extreme weakness of jobs growth from 2000-2007," said Shierholz in a statement.

The ranks of the long-term unemployed -- people out of work for 27 weeks or more -- grew by 433,000 in June to a total of 4.4 million. Three in 10 of the unemployed are now long-term unemployed. The collapse of the housing industry contributes to their plight.

"We know right now because of the housing crisis that people can't move to find another job," Shierholz said. "People that in previous recessions may have been able to relocate to find another job can't now."

The Huffington Post has been profiling people who've been out of work for long periods of time. Marvin Bohn of Ohio hasn't worked for a year and has been paying for his meds out-of-pocket. Steve Dittmann of Kansas said of the unemployed life, "I feel like I'm on the other side of a Plexiglass wall looking in."

A broader measure of labor underutilization that accounts for people who've stopped looking for work hit 16.5% in June, a 0.1 percentage point increase.

"In June, there were large decreases in manufacturing, construction, and professional and business services," said Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Keith Hall in a statement. "Together, these three sectors have accounted for nearly three-quarters of the jobs lost since the recession began.

Many economists have predicted that even when the recession is technically over with the economy beginning to expand, there will be a "jobless recovery" as unemployment hovers in the double-digits.

HuffPost readers: Have you joined the ranks of the long-term unemployed? Tell us about it -- email [e-mail].

Comments

[PhilipTaylor]

Main Street Businesses and Manufacturing are getting none of the $12.8 Trillion that Wall Street CR00KS are getting from the FED (Debt manufacturing) Reserve and Treasury!

So the REAL Economy is tanking while Wall Street is going up flush with $TRILLIONS!

[PhilipTaylor]

It is NOT about Left or Right or Democrats versus Republicans!

The REAL ISSUE is about Wall Street VERSUS MAIN STREET!

Wall Street OWNS BOTH HOUSES of CONGRESS and that includes Repubs and DEMS!

All with ill-gotten Loot pirated from America and the World! Mafia without rules!

OpenSecrets.org

Whoever is in control gets the BIGGEST DONATIONS from them!

Wall Street owns 50% of Dodd and Schumer and a massive part of most Republicans in Congress!

$7.5 Million/4 years on average to each Senator
$1.86 Million/4 years on average to each House Member!

Stop this with Campaign Reform!

[Photofarm]

LOL, clueless, if you think that will work. The problem is too much power in Washington DC with regulations and taxes. Simplify tax code, get rid of some of the regulation, and you get the power out of the politicians hands.

[PhilipTaylor]

That was tried and FAILED!

[Avanti2]

Will Never Happen. Once they have power, they want more and more. Pelosi, Schumer, Dodd and Frank are prime examples. Once Agency's have power, they never give it up. I don't think anything ever gets shut down in DC.

[PhilipTaylor]

How can you POSSIBLY Believe that Business is the ANSWER after the $1,200 Trillion in garbage they produced according to the BIS?

Corrupt Markets and Corrupt Executives that controlled a corrupt Bush Administration is the reason for this crisis!

[hhayden]

Too much government power is the correct answer. We get less free every time it grows. Can't think of a thing the government has done to create more or return any freedoms. The only way to rein them in is to cut off the money. We won't get it, but what we need is a jolly good tax revolt. If it were up to me a law library would be condensed down to a desk set.

[PurplePeon]

Truth.

[Indra]

The term jobless recovery is perhaps the stupidest term I have ever heard. Anyone who uses this term as if it has some practical meaning has no idea what they are talking about. Watch out! Economists in general are in for a second big surprise.

[hhayden]

The list of stupid political terms would be truly monumental.

[HMDMSR]

Americans,

Somehow you have to administer a strong program of economics deprogramming. Abandon your silly economic theories. Replace them with modern, rational and scientific models and explanations of economics and its resulting history. The end result will be a cooperative economic system with guaranteed outcomes.

[flossophy]

Yeah, let's throw out all we've learned in the last 300 years and trust the HMDMSR's of the world to s0cially & economically engineer a system that is to his/her liking.

Sounds like a brilliant plan.... perhaps you need to evolve instead of revolve.

[PhilipTaylor]

You are so brain-w@shed by your belief that markets are the answer to all you should be on CN-BC with the others in that category!

[armadillious2002]

My wife, sons, and I supported Obama and voted for him for a variety of reasons. I never really dreamed that it would eventually all boil down to jobs and survival but that's where we are. We can't worry about Iraq, or energy, or Afghanistan or much of anything else for worrying about paying the light bill and putting food on the table.

Pres. Obama - for millions now it's all about JOBS and survival everything else is on the back burner at this time.

[judiNJ]

He is doing what he can to keep the country from folding up completely. You should not blame him, he never denied it would be a bumpy road and would get worse before it got better . If McCain had won the election, he would have just let it all slid downhill and we would be in a major depression now with no end in sight at all.

[annoyed09]

judiNJ can you prove that? I don't think so. All Pres. Obama has done is say we've created or saved x amount of jobs. Please tell me how he has saved these jobs or even an accurate number of jobs he's saved. Its all smoke and mirrors and set up so he can now say without me we would have lost even more jobs. There is no way to prove that statement or in reality disprove it. I'm not saying McCain would have done better but he wouldn't have done worse.

[HMDMSR]

The problem is with capitalism itself:

http://newschooljournal.com/2009/05/toxic-economic-textbooks/

by Benjamin on May 19, 2009

"...The Post Autistic Economic Review – now known under the uninspiring sobriquet Real World Economic Review – is pushing a new movement against the problems of traditional textbooks in economics – Toxic Textbooks – saying they are to blame for the recent problems amongst other things.

The current economic meltdown is not the result of natural causes or human conspiracy, but because society at all levels became infected with false beliefs regarding the nature of economic reality. And the primary sources of this infection are the “neoclassical” or “mainstream” textbooks long used in introductory economics courses in universities throughout the world..."

[flossophy]

sigh.

No... it was bad government policies and poorly-conceived public-private partnerships which caused the financial crisis.

You're a riot. Anyone who thinks capitalism is the problem in light of enormous metastasized problems in the world's governing bodies is in complete denial of reality. I think you've isolated yourself into an ide0logical bubble.

Pop it.

[Antifascist-08]

"No... it was bad government policies and poorly-conceived public-private partnerships which caused the financial crisis."

How many times are you going to paste this drivel in your responses?

Capitalism is not a social or governing system. it is a flawed economic system.

Its sort of like your brain. It needs regulation.

[PhilipTaylor]

The problem is this CORRUPT Mafia without the RULES capitalism! Where employees skim off the profits and get to keep doing it!

Clean out the CROOKS on Wall Street and institute TRUE Campaign Funding Reform and we have a NEW Democracy and a Real Capitalist System!

[flossophy]

So, let's see... put greedy men in charge of other greedy men's wealth and private property.

Sounds like a great plan!

What part of the world are you typing these gems from, Philip?

[Tackora]

If a 467000 drop of the payroll is 0.1% increase in the jobless rate, it means that there are still 467 Million people employed in the USA. Isn't that great? We can do it! Long live the honesty of the government!

[CAP6]

Hahahaha, that's funny. We have approximately 100 million more people employed in this country than the country has people.

[stuporman]

we bailed out wall street and now their pay is back where it was. the cia is hiring the few who got shaken out. we have done nothing for main street, and it really is hurting america. private enterprise isn't going to do it, but somebody needs to start hiring millions of people at a living wage.

[cavegal]

Please provide a link regarding the CIA hiring the shake outs from the financial disaster.

[stuporman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/18/cia-targets-laidoff-banke_n_217714.html

[sc92705]

Obama never even ran a lemonade stand. He is talking MJ, Kobe vs. Jordan today, a few words on unemployment. Have a nice date nite Mr. President.

[miriamfl]

All Bushie ever gave up was golf so he said. He took a lot of time off chopping wood and Oh! have all of you forgotten KATRINA?

[Concerned American99]

Katrina, oh yeah, they had an incompetent democrat governor and a incompetent democrat mayor....what a joke. Bush called for days to tell them to do something. They let the school buses flood until they decided to do something....

[pledge16]

I forgot he is responsible for the weather as well!All those local.county,federal politicians that failed the people and we turn and blame bush.PATHETIC!

[Pigeon2]

sc92705 ditto!

[PhilipTaylor]

This BS about Left and Right or Democrats and Republicans is NOT the REAL ISSUE!

It is about Wall Street VERSUS MAIN STREET!

Wall Street OWNS BOTH HOUSES of CONGRESS and that includes Repubs and DEMS!

All with ill-gotten Loot pirated from America and the World! Mafia without rules!

OpenSecrets.org

Whoever is in control gets the BIGGEST DONATIONS from them!

Wall Street owns 50% of Dodd and Schumer and a massive part of most Republicans in Congress!

$7.5 Million/4 years on average to each Senator
$1.86 Million/4 years on average to each House Member!

Stop this with Campaign Reform!

[WIpatriot]

Campaign reform is where it needs to start.

[cavegal]

Thank you for pointing out what by now should be obvious to the ideologues on both sides of the aisle. Our congress could care less about main street USA, with a few exceptions like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. I'm sure there are others but the majority are not in congress because they love public service. They are in congress because they will reap huge benefits sitting on the boards of multi-national companies.

No candidate running for national office, on either side of the aisle, gets to run without being vetted by Wall Street. Their minions have infiltrated both national parties and they keep tabs on the pulse of enslaved Americans. And we are enslaved to corporate America with the few exceptions who own their own businesses or have learned to live completely off the grid.

[Concerned American99]

Very good points on this thread !!!!!

[flossophy]

You know, every leftist demag0gue points to the bloated plutocrats as the boogiemen the people need to rise up against. How many times have we heard this refrain in the last 90 years?

Then when the leftists gain power, everything falls apart and the economy is driven into the ground (much as it is happening now).

Philip, the problem is not with the plutocrats... the problem is in congress. The problem is with government policy which distorts the market, causing bubbles and busts which affect the lower and middle classes.

This class warfare rhetoric you peddle is antiquated and irrelevant... and belongs in 30's Weimar, not in the US.

[HMDMSR]

Which leftists in power?

[Prakosh]

Some here want to blame the situation on the Democrats but the most outstanding voice leading this charge never mentioned the name of Senator Gramm (R-Texas) with any of this. Yet he was one of the people at the forefront of deregulation of the banking industry and Wall Street. He even fought regulating money laundering by drug dealers and other irregularities. When it comes to seeking answers Republicans always have the same bogeyman--Democrats, but they never see any Republicans doing anything irregular. Clinton was a corporatist--pure and simple. Yet the Republicans act like he was some kind of communist.

[petridish]

Sorry, but you left out two other critical names...... Rubin and Sumners. All three of these men were instrumental in gutting the regulatory system which led us to this fiasco.

Rubin and Sumners run Obamas economic poicy. Gramm was going to run McCains.

Change?

[petridish]

And the funny thing is the rank and file registered voters of each party only see fault in the opposing parties elected officials, When, if TRUTH be told, BOTH PARTIES ARE GUILTY AS HELL.

[marijam]

These Republicans. They just won't pay their bills.

[hhayden]

What does that even mean?

[sueinmn]

States played the book game and broke the cosntitution every time! Governors should have been held accountable. They played way too long this game and now its caught up. Where did all the deficits come from the past 8 yrs? Certainly not from the Dems. We had little say! Why have programs run rampant to cause deficits so large? Who was in control since Clinton left a surplus? Obama pisks up where GWB leaves off. Altleast a stimulus to TRY to help the people. Bush give it all to just banksters.

I rest my case!

[Antifascist-08]

Amen. And the lies and the spin will never end. Our economy has been almost destroyed by the policies and actions of the last 8 years. Never, ever, in this country have we seen so much greed and corruption. Well, except for right before the Great Depression.

People and news stations want instant fixes. This is a GIANT MESS. It was in November and it still is now. Some of the free fall has been arrested, but the criminals want to take all they can and then get back to business as usual. When you get away with something like this for 8 years, you don't want to give it up.

[marijam]

It's actually twice as high, and has been for the last 9 years. Bush statistics were lies.

[HMDMSR]

It's about 16%, using the old counting method.

[Prakosh]

Some here want to blame the situation on the Democrats but the most outstanding voice leading this charge never mentioned the name of Senator Gramm (R-Texas) with any of this. Yet he was one of the people at the forefront of deregulation of the banking industry and Wall Street. He even fought regulating money laundering by drug dealers and other irregularities. When it comes to seeking answers Republicans always have the same bogeyman--Democrats, but they never see any Republicans doing anything irregular. Clinton was a corporatist--pure and simple. Yet the Republicans act like he was some kind of communist.

[flossophy]

Deregulation was a bipartisan move.

It would be the equivalent of only blaming Feingold for McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform.

Gramm is not the problem, what happened before Gramm is... Deregulation was a solution to problems we were facing in the financial markets at the time.

And btw, zero Republicans thought Clinton was some kind of c0mmunist... far from it. Where do you get these distorted views?