While Republicans continue to play cynical political games on Capitol Hill, the number of Americans who have lost their jobs is skyrocketing. It's even worse than expected:
U.S. employers slashed 598,000 jobs in January, the deepest cut in payrolls in 34 years as the national unemployment rate shot up to 7.6 percent, according to a Labor Department report on Friday that underlined a deepening recession.This is getting really, really scary. The Senate better pass the stimulus bill today.
January's job losses were worse than the 525,000 that had been forecast by Wall Street economists, who also had expected the unemployment rate to come in lower at 7.5 percent. The bleak employment data is certain to be cited by the Obama administration as a fresh reason for Congress to speed up debate over a multibillion-dollar package of proposals to try to stimulate economic activity.
