The 1st Thread For 2/5/10: To "9.7%"

Let the spin start:

The unemployment rate fell from 10.0 to 9.7 percent in January, and nonfarm
payroll employment was essentially unchanged (-20,000), the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics reported today. Employment fell in construction and in
transportation and warehousing, while temporary help services and retail
trade added jobs.

To the demographics of race:

In January, unemployment rates for most major worker groups--adult men
(10.0 percent), teenagers (26.4 percent), blacks (16.5 percent), and
Hispanics (12.6 percent)--showed little change. The jobless rate for adult
women fell to 7.9 percent, and the rate for whites declined to 8.7 percent.
The jobless rate for Asians was 8.4 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

And not to be forgotten, the discouraged and down:

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.1 million discouraged workers in January, up from 734,000 a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.5 million people marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work in the 4 weeks
preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsi-
bilities.

Now I don't see the underemployment figures, and I wish that would always be included in the forefont as well. But that isn't the case from what I see so far.

With how things are, it wouldn't shock me if it relapsed back over 10% the next time. I hope that isn't the case, and that this doesn't stop the "Jobs Bills" for needing what it needs to be.

But today was a pleasant surprise when things were predicted to be much worse.

Updated: Thanks to Meteor Blades, that underemployment rate is 16.5%