What The New Unemployment Numbers Mean for the Democrats.

And it's official: We've broken into the double digits with 10.2 percent unemployment. That brings me to our favorite beginning of the month chart, above and here, which includes the all important U-6 number. The U-6 number measures all of the people who have been adversely affected by the labor market, including the unemployed, those who have stopped looking for jobs, and people who have been forced to work part-time when they'd like to work full hours: 17.5 percent of the labor force. That's a huge number, nearly one-in-five workers, and spells out more clearly than any other measures what happened during Tuesday's election.

The White House, while realistic, tried to focus on the good signs: unemployment declined at a slower rate, again, with fewer jobs lost in October than September, and there was an up-tick in temporary employment, traditionally a sign that economists look for to see if the labor market is improving (employers hire temporary workers first, then make permanent hires as recovery looks to stick around). The real question now is what the governing Democrats will do, and I think Steve Benen has a nice framework for looking at this problem: Go Big, Go Home or Take a Detour.

To my mind, this situation calls for "take a detour." The administration should push Congress to finish health care as soon as possible, let the relevant committees continue working on financial regulation, and devote the rest of its efforts to the problem of unemployment, whether by passing a jobs tax credit or fiscal aid to states. While Going Big is awful tempting, it's not clear to me that Congressional Democrats have the stomach to do what is necessary to get through the president's agenda against the substance-less carping of the opposition party, which wants to take more time to talk about the ideas they don't have. Given that, doing what can be done and focusing on the economy seems to make the most sense. But I'm certainly in agreement with Matt: Going home isn't an option, and the moderate Democrats who want to use the economic situation as an excuse to do nothing at all ought to be ashamed. Democrats were elected to solve problems, and if they fail in that responsibility, not only will they be booted out of office, they'll deserve it.

-- Tim Fernholz