The U.S. unemployment rate inched up over the last month, going from 9.1 percent to 9.2 percent.
Things are even worse at the state and local level.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data on state-by-state employment in June reveals that total state and local government jobs fell in 39 states over the past year.
Overall state-local government employment is now 2 percent below its level at the start of the recession, while private employment is down 5.8 percent over the same period.
The hardest hit state is New Jersey, according to analyses by the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the University of Albany.
Sorry to bring you such a Follow-up Friday downer.
But it does underscore the importance of the this week's tax tip on tax concerns of the unemployed.
Unfortunately, that information might be necessary for a while.
More than 30 percent of unemployed workers in several of the largest states have been out of a job for more than a year.
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