Unemployment Rate Reaches Five-Year High

Yesterday, the government announced that in employers shed more than 85,000 jobs in August. That’s the eighth monthly job loss in a row. Though historically, the unemployment rate now is nowhere near the level in the early 90s (the chart below is the historical monthly unemployment rate since 1990), last month’s 6.1% unemployment rate is still the highest level since September 2003 when the economy was at the bottom of the last recession. So far this year, more than 600,000 jobs have been lost due to everything we have already known: rising energy cost, falling home price, turmoil in the finance market, etc.

The first economic stimulus plan has come and gone. When the plan was first proposed, it was supposed to give the economy a shot in the arm. So far it looks like the checks we received did a little to boost the economy other than giving the retail sales a few tenths of a percentage point gain in June and July.

Do we need a second stimulus like the Democrates are proposing?

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