Today we got word that the the pace of Unemployment for the month decreased a bit. That's not that great news considering it still increased by more then 600,000 individuals. Anyway, On this Thursday I thought we'd have a look at the US unemployment rate for the last 20 years. I like graphs and charts, because like they say "a picture is worth a thousand words." Graphs tell multiple stories and quickly allow you to visualize just how bad things may be right now:
Looking at the chart above, which is about 45 days old, it is really daunting how fast the unemployment rate rose. Much faster then any time in the last 20 years, or last 60 years for that matter. Another thing sticks out is year and a half from 2007-2008 where the unemployment rate was under 4%. At the time we didn't realize how good we had it. Now, as the rate approaches 10%, probably sometime by the year's end, we look back just 18 months and wish we were even close to those rates. The good thing though is that we likely won't go much higher then 10%, and soon after will begin adding jobs. Will we see a rate of 3.5% like we did 2 years ago, anytime soon? I doubt it, but by late 2011 I wouldn't be surprised seeing the rate in the 5-6% range, which isn't half bad.
