The official unemployment numbers are just out for October, and the data reinforces all of the worrisome surveys that have been coming out all week:

• The unemployment rate rose to 10.2% in October, from 9.8% in September.
• The unemployment rate was 4.9% at the start of the recession in December, 2007.
• There were 15.7 million unemployed persons in October. The number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million since the start of the recession.

Government stimuli will not fix the problem in this economy. We need to stimulate real growth, and do so quickly. Even with a massive tax cut and other reductions to barriers for entrepreneurial activity it will take a long time to rebuild sustainable growth. But the longer we wait, the more entrenched this high level of unemployment will become.


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