The nation’s official unemployment rate has jumped to 7.2 percent as employers eliminated over 500,000 jobs in December. In all of 2008, 2.6 million people lost their jobs, the largest slump in employment since 1945. Economists estimate the actual unemployment rate is 13.5 percent if you include underemployed and discouraged workers, who have stopped looking for a job. On Friday, the military contractor Boeing announced it would eliminate 4,500 jobs, mostly in the Washington state area. Many economists predict the unemployment rate will continue to rise in 2009.

Duke University Professor Campbell Harvey: “Right now it seems like we are losing about half a million jobs every month. So the situation is very dire. And combined with this, there’s no obvious end in sight. There’s no single economic indicator that would suggest that we’re near the end or the trough of this recession. So, basically, we’re faced, in my opinion, with an additional three million losses ahead in 2009.”