Unemployment During the Great Depression: Are We Getting Close?

Each week delivers more grim news about some part of the economy, including job cuts and climbing unemployment. All the gloom-and-doom has some recalling unemployment during the Great Depression. At this point the U.S. unemployment rate is 6.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics; peak unemployment during the Great Depression was 25 percent. Are we inching toward a similarly unsavory fate?