The collapse of the real estate market and military contracts has pushed unemployment statewide to more than 9.5 percent, compared with 7.8 percent nationwide.

These policies have pushed unemployment up to two point five million and rising.

Businesses have flocked to the state in recent years, pushing unemployment down to 3.3 percent, far below the current national average, 5.8 percent.

Rising interest rates have slowed the economy and pushed unemployment to nearly 20 percent.

That shift could push unemployment up to politically dangerous levels.

The recession which began in the autumn of 1990 deepened during 1991, pushing unemployment from 1,600,000 to 2,400,000 by the end of the year.

If the Fed would try to push unemployment any lower, the theory went, it would send wages, then prices, spiraling upward.

Wouldn't that have pushed unemployment even higher?

Since 2000, economic growth has been rapid, pushing unemployment down to levels not seen since the early 1980s (unemployment in 2007: 1.3%).

However, the recent slowdown in growth has pushed unemployment up again.