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U.S. Unemployment Rate Hits 10.2%, Highest in 26 Years
By PETER S. GOODMAN
As the unemployment rate surged to 10.2 percent in October, reaching double digits for the first time in 26 years, it suddenly seemed possible that the nation might yet confront the worst joblessness since the Great Depression.

In the six decades since the government began compiling such data, the highest level of unemployment came at the end of 1982, when it hit 10.8 percent. Despite the widespread assumption that the recession has already ended, and even as the economy has resumed growing, the government’s latest snapshot of the labor market released Friday testified to the uncomfortable truth that expansion had yet to translate into jobs.

“The guy on the street is going to ask, ‘What recovery?’ ” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at the PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. “The job market is still in reverse.”

The sharp rise in unemployment — which climbed from 9.8 percent in September, as the nation lost another 190,000 net jobs — intensified pressure on the Obama administration to show results from the $787 billion package of spending measures unleashed early this year to spur the economy...