Unemployment rate bolts to 8.5 percent, a 25-year high

By Jeanine Aversa
Associated Press
04/03/2009

WASHINGTON — Unemployment zoomed to 8.5 percent last month, the highest in a quarter-century, as employers axed 663,000 more workers and pushed the nation's jobless ranks past 13 million. The hard times were only expected to get harder — a painful 10 percent jobless rate before long.

The current rate would be even higher — 15.6 percent — if it included laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have had to settle for part-time work because they can't do any better. That's the highest on record for that number in records that go back to 1994. the rest