On Friday, November 6, 2009, President Obama signed an extension of unemployment benefits for the nation’s 15.7 million unemployed workers.

While great news for the 600,000 unemployed who have exhausted their benefits, the need for the unemployment insurance extension represents an economy that is still far from recovery.

The legislation was signed on the same day that the Department of Labor released their latest figures on unemployment. Even though the rate of newly unemployed has slowed down, the national unemployment rate for October 2009 has increased to 10.2%, the highest it’s been in 26 years (since April 1983). Many of those out-of-work people are chronically unemployed – 35.6% of the total are persons who have remained jobless for 27 weeks or more.

Iowa’s unemployment rate of 6.3% qualifies its unemployed workers for up to 14 additional weeks of unemployment benefits. This is below the 8.5% threshold that would have extended benefits for 20 additional weeks (Illinois and 25 other states fall into this category).

The extension of benefits was passed overwhelmingly in both the House and Senate. It seems the even our politicians recognize the dire situation of our economy despite the proclamations in the business sections of our nation’s newspapers that have declared the recession over. The extended benefits signify that total assistance for many of our nation’s unemployed workers will be nearly two years – the longest period of unemployment benefits in our nation’s history.

Though the pace of the loss of jobs has slowed, the creation of new jobs still lags, let alone good jobs comparable to the ones lost. But one positive sign of growth, however, is in the health care sector which added 29,000 jobs in October. Since the start of the recession, health care has added 597,000 jobs. Manufacturers also reported an increase in jobs for the first time in 15 months in October, but these were mostly temporary workers or recalls of laid-off workers.

Unfortunately, the Department of Labor reports that the biggest increases in new jobs for October was in temporary help services which added 34,000 jobs in October.

In addition to the 26 year high in the unemployment rate, the actual number of people willing to work but who cannot find work is much higher.

The underemployment rate, which includes part-time workers, the jobless and those who have given up on searching, was 17.5 percent in October — the highest level since at least 1994.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, there are six workers for every single job opening in the country. Altogether there are more than 25 million Americans – one in six workers who are either out of work or in a dead-end, part time job they’ve had to accept in lieu of a real job.