Thursday Is New Jobless Day

Still deep into holy crap territory.

The economy shrank at a 6.3 percent pace at the end of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, and probably isn't doing much better now.

The Commerce Department on Thursday reported that the economy was sinking a bit faster than the 6.2 percent annualized drop for the October-December quarter estimated a month ago.

And the pain has persisted in the current quarter. New claims for unemployment benefits last week rose to a seasonally adjusted 652,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 644,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. The total number of people claiming benefits jumped to 5.56 million, higher than economists' projections of 5.48 million, and a ninth straight record-high.