Since The Great Depression

(NYT) 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.

And they start out by calling what we are experiencing the Great Recession. Since it was over a year ago that we really were in this recession, and things have not improved, more than likely we are already in a depression. Just because we are not seeing conditions as bleak as experienced during the Great Depression does not mean we are not in one now. It is just not "great." Anyway:

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.

By the way, I am of the underemployed, while The GirlFriend™ is of the discouraged block.

Oh, and with the passing of the unemployment insurance extension, will those who resume receiving benefits move back into the official unemployed statistic? Or will they remain in the "discouraged" data set?

And, in a totally unrelated note: it is The GirlFriend™'s birthday.

Happy Birthday Love!