The unemployment report is out today and the numbers are still pretty grim. U-3 (the commonly reported measure by the media) is up to 7.6% and U-6 (the more accurate measure) is up to 13.9%.
BLS Report
The important thing to keep in mind with these reports is that while a historic spread between U-3 and U-6 exists, they cannot diverge as much as they have for long, as those discouraged workers will eventually want to return to the workforce, which will then either cause U-3 to rise or keep U-3 elevated well into a recovery. These numbers are very scary, as there is very little positive news on the horizon that will cause unemployment to diminish (in the next 6 months) and with rising unemployment comes further reductions in consumption and worse GDP.
Let's also remember that in all the comparisons we here on the media to 1982 (jobless claims and auto sales come to mind), that those numbers need to calculated on a per capita basis in order to get a real apples to apples comparison. By doing the per capita comparison we realize that 1982 was still worse on the jobless situation (although we are quickly catching up) and we are much worse with auto sales. Finally, it is also helpful to remember that the 1981-82 recession was engineered by the Federal Reserve to kill inflation and thus logic dictated that when interest rates were lowered again the economy would pick up. We do not have an easy solution to the mess we are in now.