10.2%

Double-freaking-digit unemployment, gentlebeings.  The last four-tenths of which erupted in the month of October alone.  558,000 more jobs down the pink slip midden hole.

And it's all Barack Obama's fault:

The unemployment rate rose from 9.8 to 10.2% in October, and nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline (-190,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The largest job losses over the month were in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade.

In October, the number of unemployed persons increased by 558,000 to 15.7 million. The unemployment rate rose by 0.4 percentage point to 10.2%, the highest rate since April 1983. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3 percentage points. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (10.7%) and whites (9.5%) rose in October. The jobless rates for adult women (8.1%), teenagers (27.6%), blacks (15.7%), and Hispanics (13.1%) were little changed over the month. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.5%, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was little changed over the month at 5.6 million. In October, 35.6% of unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more. (See table A-9.)

The civilian labor force participation rate was little changed over the month at 65.1%. The employment-population ratio continued to decline in October, falling to 58.5%. (See table A-1.)

Predicted ObamaHouse spin: No big deal, as the latest spike in joblessness afflicted white crackers instead of REAL Americans.  They deserve it.

You laugh, but what, really, CAN The One say?  Hogzilla is every bit the failure we said it would be.  He's making up "saved or created" job figures out of thin air and it's so pathetically egregious that media all over the country are actually pointing it out.  He's proliferating pandemic debt (that nobody "made him" do), and his Marxist, constitution-combusting domestic agenda is one literally mega-job-killer after another, which is keeping investment capital (whatever Red Barry hasn't pillaged, anyway) on the sidelines instead of fueling a genuine economic recovery.  This is how a "command economy" works.  Or, rather, doesn't work, which is why countries that go down the Soviet socialist road (almost?) always degenerate into dictatorships.

Here's some additional perspective on that magic psychological 10% barrier.  From the 5.0% "full employment" baseline at which we started two years ago, by Election Day 2008 joblessness had increased to....6.1%.  So, factually speaking, George W. Bush can be blamed for approximately 21% of the overall 5.2 percentage point unemployment rise, since he pretty much (1) pursued a statist/interventionist course after Wall Street collapsed last September, (2) sought to do nothing during the post-election interregnum and (2) wasn't allowed to do anything by the Pelosi/Reid Axis in any case.  That leaves the other 79% of the unemployment doubling squarely hanging around Red Barry's scrawny neck.

And that includes "underemployment" as well:

But the loss of jobs last month exceeded economists’ estimates. It’s the 22nd straight month the U.S. economy has shed jobs, the longest on records dating back seventy years.

Counting those who have settled for part-time jobs or stopped looking for work, the unemployment rate would be 17.5%, the highest on records dating from 1994.

As the aforelinked Mark Tapscott points out, there's only one way out of this mess, and 2010/2012 electoral destruction, for the Democrats:

It's time for Obama and Democratic congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to step back from their radical plans to vastly expand federal power, spending, deficits and taxes, and instead reach out to conservatives in both parties who understand how to make the economy grow with tax cuts, reduced bureaucracy, and lower government spending. They also understand the urgency of achieving U.S. energy independence by quickly adopting the "all-of-the-above" policy of freeing America's abundant conventional energy resources while encouraging alternative sources. In other words, stop playing ideological games and get serious about restoring economic growth before millions more jobs are lost.

Commit ideological suicide in order to avoid committing political suicide.  Can anybody see Red Barry, Crazy Nancy, and Dirty Harry (especially) embracing such a Hobson's choice?

Me neither.