Unemployment

It's interesting reading about the state-level unemployment data. For places that I know at least a little bit it gives me a better sense of what it might actually mean. North Carolina:

North Carolina lost jobs at a record pace last month, pushing unemployment to a 25-year high as the outlook for the state darkened amid a deepening recession.

Employers slashed 46,000 jobs in November, more than in any state except Florida, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Those job cuts pushed the unemployment rate to 7.9 percent from 7.1 percent in October, according to figures from the N.C. Employment Security Commission. The jobless rate is now the highest since October 1983.

I've long said that a deep recession has sort of been lost from our cultural memory. The last one was the Reagan recession, though as bad as it was it was actually quite short. There were regional pockets of deep pain in the Bush I recession, but nationally it wasn't that big of a deal.