Reich: New jobless report means the chance of double dip recession is 50-50

The weak unemployment numbers came in this morning at 117,000 new jobs for the month of July.  Many economists are breathing a little easier this morning as the numbers were considerably better than the near death numbers in June of 18,000. Those numbers were revised to 46,000 newly employed.

But the Bureau of Labor Statistics glumly reported that “Since April, the unemployment rate has shown little definitive movement.”

Prior to the release of the numbers, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert gave his own downbeat interpretation: @RBReich: “If [today’s] job number is below 125,000, chance of double dip goes up to 50-50. ”

Unemployment remains at 9.1%. Nearly 14 million are unemployed, 6.3 million are long term unemployed for more than 27 weeks and 2.8 million are discouraged workers who have given up looking for any work.