The nation’s unemployment rate in September rose to 9.8 percent, its highest level since June 1983, as 263,000 jobs were cut from payrolls, the Labor Department announced Friday

The 263,000 jobs lost during the monthwere far more than most economists had expected. The consensus forecast was that around 175,000 jobs had been shed in September.

“One job lost is one job too many,” said Vice President Biden this morning, flanked by chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Christina Romer; OMB Director Peter Orszag; Director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers; and Executive Director of the Middle Class Task Force Jared Bernstein.

Meanwhile, here in the great state of Ohio, Unemployment still hovers around 11% – August’s Unemployment numbers were reported at 10.8%. While that is down from the high of 11.2% in July, there’s still no reason yet to celebrate – One in Ten Ohioans still do not have a job.

Here in Central Ohio, the picture doesn’t look any better. The area (Franklin County & Surrounding Areas) has an average unemployment rate of 9%, with Pickaway County reporting 11% unemployment in August alone. Other areas of concern throughout the state:

• Meigs County: 16.6% Unemployment
• Highland County: 16.3% Unemployment
• Williams County: 15.9% Unemployment
• Pike & Morgan Counties: 15.6% Unemployment
• Noble & Adams Counties: 15.0% Unemployment
• Scioto County (Gov. Strickland’s Home County): 13.1% Unemployment

The Administration may want to call this “Change.” If this is the change the Cult of Barack Obama was talking about…its change in the wrong direction.

Click here to read the full ABC News Article

Click here for Localized Ohio Unemployment Statistics

What do YOU think? Is there hope yet, or will it get worse before it gets better? Leave a comment!

Dispatch Politics, an online division of the Columbus Dispatch, shed a little light on Gov. Strickland’s Economic Growth Cabinet. According to the Governor, they have worked tirelessly to bring jobs back to the State of Ohio. Despite the fact that they’ve only met three times.

From the Columbus Dispatch:

Saying he has no greater priority than getting Ohio’s economy moving again, Gov. Ted Strickland created a new Economic Growth Cabinet one year ago to “focus on creating jobs and increasing economic growth opportunities.”

But the group has met only three times. And although no one denies the effects that the global recession has had on all states, Ohio continues to fare worse than most others in net job losses.

“I will concede to you that I think more can be done,” Strickland said last week after announcing a $33 million expansion of the Rolls-Royce facility in Mount Vernon. “But I am very proud, and very appreciative, of all the efforts of my cabinet members and of our Department of Development.”

Administration officials say the measure of the new cabinet is not how many times it has met but how much work has been done behind the scenes to help agencies work together daily — often in unprecedented ways — that is bearing fruit.

Still, a promised “unified economic development budget” to increase transparency in spending and a scorecard to monitor progress of development remain works in progress.

Further proof that Gov. Strickland is playing a shell game with Ohio’s economic future – saying one plan, creating larger government in order to accommodate that plan, and being completely and absolutely ineffective in that plan. The result is money – which could have gone directly to serving Ohioans, and creating jobs – are being wasted on fruitless plans that serve nothing but the governor’s own inner circle.

Take heart, Ohio – only one more year before we can call John Kasich our governor…and get rid of this perfect mess in Gov. Ted Strickland.

Read the Columbus Dispatch article here