Chart of the day

In case you weren't sure that the whole "10.2 % unemployment" thing was a bad economic indicator, the blog EconomPic is here to tell you that things are worse than reported and create a graphical representation. Like, for instance, the fact that despite the fact that establishment jobs survey reported a loss of 190,000, the household survey reported a loss of 558,000 jobs. Or that the real unemployment rate is actually around 17.5%: That weekly hours are at an all time lowThat labor participation is nosediving
That the country now has the least amount of hours worked per citizen...since...ever
I guess the New York Times wasn't bullshitting when it said "At no time in post-World War II America has it been more difficult to find a job, to plan for the future, or — for tens of millions of Americans — to merely get by" and noted that we'd need to have years of robust growth (which isn't guaranteed) just to recover what was lost. I guess this is why Krugman is preparing his "I told you so" dance.

Still, it could be worse. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan Chase could have been forced to give out $29 billion in bonuses instead of $30 billion. So keep things in perspective.