Unemployment climbs to 5-year high of 6.1 percent
By historical standards, the country is far from the employment carnage seen more than two decades ago, when unemployment climbed above 10 percent during President Reagan's first term in the early 1980s.
Still, some groups are being hit harder than others. The jobless rate for blacks jumped to 10.6 percent last month, the highest since late 2005. And, the unemployment rate for Hispanics rose to 8 percent, a five-year high.
The grim report prompted Capitol Hill Democrats to renew their push for a second stimulus package. The Bush administration and other Republicans have been cool to the idea.
Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain seized on the job figures to attack each other's proposals to turn the economy around.
"The working men and women I meet every day are working harder for less," Obama said. He advocates tax cuts for working families and investment in road, bridges and other projects to lift the economy.
McCain vowed to "fight for those that lost their jobs, savings and real-estate investments." He said tax reductions for people and businesses, job training and measures to promote trade will help ease the economic woes.
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Member Comments
Posted By: ceanf9 @ 08/28/2008 3:36:27 PM
Comment: please, do tell me how bush is a dictator when he was voted into office. do you even understand how our government is structured? perhaps you were sleeping through your high school government class. yes yes we all understand that you don't like bush and think he is the devil, but the government consists of much more than just the president. the problem lies with all the useless, greedy, corrupt politicians. and it is the government as whole that is responsible for the problems we have today (which really arn't all that bad) please, do us all a favor and think before you post next time.
Posted By: Bowles2323 @ 08/28/2008 2:57:04 PM
Comment: Hmmm.....GDP growth at 3.3% while inflation grew 4.2% over the same period. Doesn't sound like growth to me. But they gotta get the stock market to move up at any cost, even if it means putting out numbers that are not the real picture.
Posted By: Young Hickory @ 08/19/2008 2:25:38 PM
Comment: Hey Dems, let's milk the tragedy of the Bush presidency like Republicans done with president Carter over the last 30 years. One hundred years from now some jerk will still be trying to invoke Carter as a reason to not vote Democratic. The real ghosts that still haunt us are those Nixon holdovers like Rumsfeld and Cheney who continue to mess us up.