The following table shows the historical unemployment rates for the United States since January, 2000. It also shows the yearly unemployment averages. There is little doubt that 2009 was the worst year in recent history for unemployment rates.

November and December have had the highest average unemployment rates since 2000. The holiday season is historically a bad time for employment rates. People look forward to holiday bonuses, but for many just surviving the season is enough.
Feel free to copy and use the above table.
The raw data for the unemployment data was taken from the following web site:
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS14000000
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