10% Unemployment Here to Stay: Poll

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- On Friday, the Labor Department gave the bad news: The nation's unemployment rate hit a 26-year high in October, while nonfarm payrolls were slashed by a slightly larger-than-expected 190,000.

While the street consensus had forecast a more subtle rise to 9.9% from September's 9.8%, many public and private sector economists anticipated the rate to top 10% before year end. Despite a smattering of recent positive-sounding economic figures highlighting a recovery, jobless numbers are the proverbial "lagging indicator" and many realize that the job market would get worse before it gets better.

Still, the headline -- unemployment rate at 10.2% -- is utterly disappointing, though not all-together surprising to our readers. A vast majority, about 82%, of readers of TheStreet who took a poll posted before the release of the labor report, believed that the unemployment rate would top 10% during the month. ...