Not that anyone was paying attention to this, but the unemployment for August dropped to 4.9% the lowest since August 2001:
The Labor Department said Friday that the nation’s unemployment rate fell 0.1 percent in August to 4.9 percent, the lowest level in four years.
In the report compiled before Hurricane Katrina, the government said that 169,000 jobs were added to business payrolls last month.
While that growth is lower than expected, the Labor Department revised the previous month’s payrolls number higher.
The 4.9 percent unemployment rate reported for August was down a notch from July’s 5 percent rate and was the lowest since August 2001.