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NewsFlash: August 1, 2008

Unemployment rate rises, buying power drops

The rise in the unemployment rate to 5.7 percent, the highest in four years, caps off a week of disappointing economic news.  In today’s Jobs Picture, EPI senior economist Jared Bernstein reveals a landscape where the buying power of weekly paychecks is dropping sharply, more part-timers want full-time work, and the unemployment rate of African-American adult men jumped to 10 percent. “The persistence of job and real wage losses provides a very strong rationale for a second stimulus package,” said
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