Unemployment Tops 10 Percent

For the first time since 1983, the U.S. unemployment rate has risen above 10 percent. According Labor Department figures released this morning, the jobless rate rose to 10.2 percent in October from 9.8 percent in September. Payrolls lost a higher-than-anticipated 190,000 workers. The ranks of the "underemployed"—part-time workers who want to work full-time and people who have given up looking for work–also spiked to a record 17.5 percent, up half a point from September. This week, federal policy makers said they would keep borrowing costs low for an "extended period" because they expected the economy to "remain weak for a time."