Unemployment rate unchanged, U6 up 0.1% in June

Credit: Calculated Risk

Fresh electrons from BLS: The headline number is going to be the relatively anemic job growth numbers at as the economy added 80k nonfarm payroll jobs in June. The national unemployment rate stayed steady at 8.2% and U6 unemployment ticked up 0.1% to 14.9%.

I'm beginning to be reminded of the last line from This American Life's "The Giant Pool of Money" episode which came out in May 2008. There's nothing quite like driving on I-5 in '08, looking for a job and hearing this: 

"And there's more talk that the next few years will feel like the 1970s. There are lots of technical differences between this crisis and Jimmy Carter's malaise. But for the average person it could feel the same. It's not an out-and-out depression. Everything's just kind of crappy. And not just in housing and banking, but for the economy as a whole. It's barely growing. There aren't a lot of new businesses, new jobs, unemployment keeps creeping up. We're just sort of stuck in neutral for a while. Anyone under, say, 45 probably doesn't remember that 1970s malaise too well. Anyone under 30 has barely known a US economy that wasn't growing. Now, there's a decent chance we'll all get to see what life felt like in the '70s, which isn't great. It's pretty bad, actually, unless you're comparing it to the 1930s."

Great, just great.

Thanks, as always, to Calculated Risk for the best Worst Graph in the World.