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.
5 minutes ago · The high school buddies who trolled the streets looking for Hispanics to attack called it "beaner hopping."
"Jose, Kevin and I started popping and Jose punched him so hard he knocked him out," Anthony Harfford told police.
Harfford said he didn't do it often: "Maybe only once a week."
There had been other high-profile attacks on a growing Hispanic population on eastern Long Island before Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero was stabbed to death a year ago Sunday on a street corner.
Bu
18 minutes ago · By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON, Associated Press Writer Raquel Maria Dillon, Associated Press Writer – Fri Nov 6, 9:41 am ET
LAS VEGAS – Puerto Rican duo Calle 13 won all five awards it was nominated for Thursday at the Latin Grammys in Las Vegas, including two of the top awards of the night and honors in both urban and alternative categories.
The awards show ran late because Mexico's "Divo of Juarez," Juan Gabriel, sang for 40 minutes straight while mariachis stomped on stage and the audience
1 hour ago · SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Five more banks, including a California-based institution that reportedly received federal bailout funds in 2008, were closed Friday by regulators, bringing the 2009 total to 120 failed banks.
The latest banks to be taken over were United Security Bank of Sparta, Ga.; Home Federal Savings Bank of Detroit; United Commercial Bank of San Francisco; Gateway Bank of St. Louis and Prosperan Bank of Oakdale, Minn., according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
4 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
9 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
9 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
10 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....
10 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
12 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
13 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
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