Boston University economics professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff says that the US is bankrupt.
Not entirely unrelated, a time-lapse map of county-by-county unemployment rates in the US from January 2007, month by month through May 2010.
And last but not least, the Christian Science Monitor graphs total US unemployment from about mid-1995 through February 2010.
(Remember, official unemployment rate numbers only count those receiving some form of government jobless assistance — unemployment benefits, job retraining, government work search programs etc — and do not include those whose unemployment benefits have run out, or "discouraged workers" who still need a job but have given up trying to find one because they believe there are none to be had. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report, if I'm interpreting it correctly, reports an official rate of 9.5% as of the end of July, but that rate rises to 11.2% including discouraged workers and other long-term unemployed who do not qualify under the BLS rules, and to 16.1% if "involuntary part-time workers" — those who want to work full-time, but can find only part-time work — are included.)