Unemployment in the United States

Unless you have been hiding underneath a rock, you know something about our economy and the unemployment. “The Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary estimate for job losses for June is 467,000, which means 7.2 million people have lost their jobs since the start of the recession.” Unemployment has been rising at an alarming rate and hit 14.7 million just recently in June. This news article from The Wall Street Journal summarizes the current unemployment rate and the rate of people who haven’t searched for work. The amount of workers taking part-time jobs has also been skyrocketing, doubling in this recession. “The average length of official unemployment increased to 24.5 weeks, the longest since government began tracking this data in 1948.” Even though our economy and unemployment is dismal, minimum wage is increasing to $7.25 an hour on July 24, 2009. I feel that this article is important to read because it summarizes the current unemployment and makes the reader realize how abominable our economy is.