[TigersEye]

The unemployment rate – which hit a low of 4.4 per cent prior to the start of the credit crisis – jumped to 7.2 per cent, its highest level in 16 years. Unemployment has now risen by a full percentage point since September, when the crisis intensified with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the investment bank.

I guess I don't know how to do this Million Man Math. The difference between 4.4 and 7.2 is one percentage point? And didn't the credit crisis really begin well after September?

[NC28203]

>>>I guess I don’t know how to do this Million Man Math. The difference between 4.4 and 7.2 is one percentage point? And didn’t the credit crisis really begin well after September?

The one percent gain was since Septmber 2008. The 4.4% rate was from March 2007. The credit crisis began in July 2007, with the closing of high yield debt markets, the tightening of credit standards and rising of rates for interbank lending. As the story noted, the crisis intensified this past September with the collapse of Lehamn.