Forecasters had been expecting a loss of about 100,000 jobs in September and ... to make the report even more worrisome, the Labor Department did its survey during the week of September 8th. If you recall, the credit crisis became critical.

Critics have often criticized unemployment rate numbers, however, as they do not account for the "underemployed" and for those whose benefits have run out. At the same time, the new numbers are especially worrisome because the government conducted its survey during the week of Sept. 8, before the credit crisis took a new turn for the worse during the week of Sept. 17.

Revised figures for July and August: employers cut 67,000 jogs in July, versus the 60,000 previously reported. Employers cut 73,000 jobs in August, slightly less than the 84,000 initially estimated.

Joshua Shapiro, an economist at MFR, a research firm in New York told the New York Times:

"The U.S. consumer is in major trouble, with wage and salary income growth evaporating, credit extremely tight or unavailable, home prices continuing to decline, and food and energy costs consuming a large share of household budgets. Whatever the government might or might not do to try to bail out the financial system, a consumer-led recession is upon us, and it promises to be a serious one.”