This is the eye of the economic hurricane. Right now. Today, this minute. The debate necessarily focuses on how long it lasts and what can quickly, efficiently ease the pain and ultimately return the economy to a growth mode. Meantime, we’re knee-deep in the grip of recession—recession with a capital R. This is what a severe downturn looks and feels like.
This morning’s grim employment report for December provides the latest installment of the ugly details. Indeed, the jobless rate popped up to 7.2% last month from 6.8% and is likely to climb further before all is said and done. Meanwhile, nonfarm payrolls shrunk again by more than 500,000 for the second month running, as our chart below shows.
With the December numbers in, that makes for a perfect record in 2008: Every month last year was a losing proposition for jobs, with the trend getting worse as 2008 unfolded. So far in this cycle, nearly 2.6 million nonfarm jobs have been lost to the recession, which NBER says began in December 2007.