Pretty grim. The Times covers it here and its economics blog has this to say: “It’s still too early to call this the worst recession since the Great Depression. But it’s bad, and it’s still getting worse at a rapid rate.” On a more positive note, a Siena College survey just found that New Yorkers’ consumer confidence rose 3 percentage points last month, while the national rate fell 5 points.


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  1. That leaves 85% of the population employed.

    Posted by: daveinbedstuy at March 6, 2009 2:09 PM

    Nope. According to CIA World Factbook, 27% of the population is under 19 and 13% is over 65. The unemployment rate only applies to the population of working age – over 16 so there’s a bit of overlap.

    If we say 24% is under 16 then about 63% of the population is of employment age. 16% of these are unemployed under the BLS’ U6 definition (although shadowstats puts it closer to 19%), so only 53% of the population is employed.

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