The national unemployment rate is now 10.2%, the worst since 1983. The government released the new unemployment numbers showing that the October the jobless rate was up from the 9.8% reported in September, while economists had predicted an increase only up to 9.9%. This is very bad news, indeed.

Despite the fact that the economy grew in the third quarter at the fastest pace in two years, employers are still looking to post profits by cutting costs (i.e. jobs.) When you factor in the underemployed, 16.3% of the workforce is unable to earn a forty-hour paycheck.

So even though we are no longer in a recession (technically), now that unemployment is in the double digits  we are on a dangerous downward spiral that probably ends with roving bands of motorcycle-riding savages terrorizing the countryside and stealing food and fuel from fearful bands of survivors. Luckily we are still  a few percentage points away from that scenario.

As an amateur economist (and given the state of their predictions over the last few years, I consider all economists to be amateurs) I have prepared an unofficial scale for the state of American society as it corresponds to unemployment:

• 0-5% Unemployment = Housing boom; easy and cheap credit; billions in bonuses for Wall Street.

• 5-10% Unemployment = Foreclosure boom; even teachers no longer offering extra credit; billions in bonuses for Wall Street.

• 10-20% Unemployment = Prisons considered luxury housing; the word “credit” considered dirty and banned from airwaves by FCC; Wall Street feels kinda bad about billions in bonuses.

• >20% Unemployment = Canopy in forest considered “housing”; the concept of credit is banned by thought police; roving bands of biker gangs roast and eat investment bankers using trading slips as tinder to start the fires.

I acknowledge that there is a 20-80 percent margin of error in these predictions, but I am an economist after all.

All kidding aside, with so many pink slips getting dealt, you need to prepare for that possibility in your own life.  Check out this article from the Wall Street Journal on preparing for a long-term unemployment and wish us all good luck.