June 2009 Unemployment Rate Tops 9.5% / U6 Unemployment at 16.5%

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for June, 2009 has climbed to 9.5%. The bad news is that this is the highest rate in almost 3 decades---The good news (??) is that it only climbed 0.1 percentage points since May 2009---In my mind this could mean it will be around September before the unemployment rate possibly crests across the 10% mark.

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The U6 Unemployment Rate (which includes the unemployed, the underemployed, and the discouraged) rose to a record high of 16.5% (records only go back to 1994)



According to Reports 467,000 jobs were cut in June 2009, while the continuing claims data actually decreased---But Continuing Claims dropped by 53,000 to 6.7 million---at first glance this may seem like a good thing---But I believe that the amount of people who have used up all of their UI claims more than made up that 53,000 person decrease.