Unemployment rate continues downward spiral
The unemployment rate rose to 6% in April according to Labor Department statistics. This is at its "highest level since July 1994, when it hit 6.1 percent" according to this New York Times story (registration required):
``The unemployment rate is going higher,'' said Paul L. Kasriel, director of economic research at the Northern Trust Company in Chicago. ``The economy is poking along at a rate of growth of 2 percent or less. That is not fast enough to keep the rate from rising. To merely stabilize employment, the economy needs to grow somewhere between 3 percent and 4 percent.''
...Over the past three months, more than half a million people have lost their jobs. The number of unemployed workers rose to 8.8 million. Nearly 2 million of those people have been out of work for 27 weeks or more, the Labor Department said.