By The Editors

The latest monthly federal jobs report has once again offered stark evidence that the nation’s economic decline is still lurching downward.

The floodtide of layoffs that swept the country’s workforce last month reached 598,000 – a figure which pushed the overall unemployment rate to a 16-year high of 7.6  percent.

The unemployment rate for black Americans increased top 12.6 percent; for Latino-Americans, to 9.7 percent; and for Asian-Americans, to 6.2 percent.

There are two more worrisome conclusions to be drawn the January job-loss data. The first is that the official current total of 598,000 jobs gone is likely to be later revised upward – as was the case with December’s initial total.

The second worrisome conclusion is that many economists believe monthly job-losses of this magnitude will continue for several more months. Expectations are growing that the nation’s overall unemployment rate could rise to 9 percent.

Since the recession began in December 2007, 3.6 million jobs have disappeared from the economy. The official unemployment rate is based on the number of individuals of working age who are out of work and looking for work. However, economists generally agree that a truer picture of unemployment is to be drawn from including involuntary part-time workers and those who only sporadically find work. By those calculations, the more accurate current unemployment rate is roughly 13.9 percent.

The grimness of the labor-market data and the scant prospects for a quick reversal of momentum is intensified by the fact that more and more states are running out of cash to pay unemployment benefits to their unemployed residents. Seven states have already emptied their unemployment-insurance trust funds and have had to borrow money to continue. Another 11 states will likely run out before the end of the year.

• Soaring Job Losses Drive Stimulus Deal (The Wall Street Journal)
• Without adequate public spending, a catastrophic recession for some (Economic Policy Institute)