Reuters reports that the unemployment rate rose in May for the fifth straight month -- and this increase is the biggest one-month increase in 22 years:
The U.S. unemployment rate jumped by the most in 22 years in May, reaching its highest level in more than 3-1/2 years and underscoring the recessionary risk the economy still faces.
The jobless rate rose to 5.5 percent last month from 5 percent, its highest level since October 2004, the Labor Department said on Friday. Some 49,000 jobs were cut from payrolls in May, the fifth straight month of job losses.
Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters forecast that 58,000 jobs would be lost in May, but had foreseen the unemployment rate rising only to 5.1 percent. So far in 2008, job losses have totaled 324,000, the department said.
Another Reuters story on the subject quotes various big financial poobahs describing the unemployment situation as "horrible", "significant" and "shocking".
Meanwhile, in a move that's a bit puzzling, House Democrats have been considering dropping a proposed 13-week extension of unemployment benefits to free up some cash to feed the War Without End:
House Democrats are likely to drop a 13-week extension of unemployment insurance benefits from a major spending package that includes continued funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that would create a new education benefit for military veterans returning from the battlefields.
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said yesterday that the unemployment insurance provision would "probably not" be part of the final package of war and domestic spending, which has become the most important legislative battle this spring between congressional Democrats and President Bush.
C'mon now -- the time when extended unemployment coverage is most helpful is when unemployment is spiking upwards. The Senate passed the bill with the unemployment insurance provision intact; the House should follow their lead.
