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Unemployment - some long-term perspective

The unemployment rate isn't good (and if you just lost your job, it doesn't matter at all)...but it IS interesting to look at how it fits into the last 40 years or so. Here is a graph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows the rate since 1970:


As you can see, the rate is somewhat high, but not unprecedented. As Clueless Emma notes, one-third of the months since 1970 have been worse than now.


Moral of the story: let's all just take a breath.
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