September 17, 2009, 3:40 pm City Unemployment Rate Exceeds 10% By Patrick McGeehan http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/city-unemployment-rate-exceeds-10/?hp New York Cityâs unemployment rate jumped to 10.3 percent in August as the number of city residents unable to find work rose to a record high of 415,800, state officials said on Thursday. The cityâs unemployment rate, up from 9.5 percent in July, is higher than the national rate of 9.7 percent and much higher than the 8 percent reported for the rest of the state, the State Labor Departmentâs figures show. Gov. David A. Paterson and other state officials said that the new data emphasized how the financial crisis has devastated the financial services industry that was the main engine of the cityâs growth in the last boom. The recession may be over for the rest of the nation, as Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, has suggested, Mr. Paterson said, but New York is still caught in its throes. âWhat heâs saying about the national recession doesnât apply to us,â Mr. Paterson said at a news conference at the Borough of Manhattan Community college in Lower Manhattan. New York is going to face âtough sleddingâ for another year or more, he said. The cityâs unemployment rate was the highest since May 1993, the labor department said. The stateâs unemployment rate rose to 9 percent in August, from 8.6 percent in July, remaining below the national rate. But the number of unemployed people in the state still rose to a record of 874,300, the figures show.
The next headline in the NY Times will be "The unemployment rate is 10% because Gov. Paterson is black!" President Jimmy Carter was quoted as saying "those bosses who fired all those New Yorkers are racist!"