The unemployment rate jumped to 6.1 percent in August, its highest level in five years, pushing the troubles of American workers to the center of the political debate as the presidential campaign enters its final weeks.
Theodore Harmon, left, helped a fellow job applicant, Solomon Boyd, on Friday as the two and others looked for work at the New York State Department of Labor office in Harlem.
For the eighth consecutive month, the nation’s employers shed jobs, 84,000 last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. In all, 605,000 jobs have been lost since January. The steady rise in unemployment, from 5.7 percent in July and 5 percent in April, is one that many economists associate with recession.
Both presidential candidates — Senators Barack Obama and John McCain — said through spokesmen that they would favor an economic stimulus package from Congress this fall.
Mr. Obama jumped on the latest report, declaring that Democrats would do more to help struggling Americans. “You would think that George Bush and his potential Republican successor, John McCain, would be spending a lot of time worrying about the economy and all these jobs that are being lost on their watch,” he said at a campaign stop in Duryea, Pa. But, “if you watched the Republican National Convention over the last three days, you wouldn’t know that we have the highest unemployment rate in five years.”
Mr. McCain issued a brief statement in which he said that “Americans are hurting and we must act to create jobs.” He added that “as president, I will enact a jobs for America economic plan that creates jobs, helps small businesses, expands opportunities and opens markets to American goods.”
Even though the economy continued to expand in the first half of the year, tell-tale signs of a recession — either in progress or soon to strike — are spreading. Consumers have curtailed their spending, the housing market continues to deteriorate, banks are reluctant to lend, consumer confidence is slipping and European and Asian economies are slowing, depriving the United States of a lift from abroad.
“The mood of the country as far as the economy is concerned is depressed,” said Nigel Gault, chief domestic economist for Global Insight, “and that is what it should be.”
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Today’s released unemployment number ate deceiving: they do not reflect those that have given up work, stopped collecting unemployment, or work
The economic news gets worse by the day. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 
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