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9.4% unemployment is really high. I don't really get the sense that media coverage reflects this reality, and most reports on economic news always seem to find the silver lining. The "good news" that job losses were not as high as expected doesn't change the fact that job losses at that level mean continued rising unemployment. A lot of people are out of work and that isn't going to improve any time soon.
(Link: http://www.eschatonblog.com/2009/06/unemployment.html)
I'd say that sounds right. The media coverage doesn't reflect reality. It mostly seems obsessed with the stock market which strikes me as out of touch with the reality of a 16.4 percent U6 number. 16.4 percent is roughly one out of six workers who are either out of work, forced to work part time when they want to work full time or who are so discouraged that they have essentially stopped looking at some point in the past year. With the ripple effects that we are about to see from the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies, I expect that number may yet climb.
Anyway, glad that the number wasn't any worse. But no matter how you slice it, a net decline (wait for the upward revision) of ~350k isn't really good news.
