Stocks went from moderately negative in the premarket to a straight out decline today as the Labor Department released its Employment Situation for the month of June.

Employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate climbed to a 26-year high of 9.5 %; compared to Wall Street estimates of 350,000 job losses with an unemployment rate of 9.6%. Workers also saw weekly wages fall, suggesting Americans will have little appetite to spend and the economy’s road to recovery will be bumpy.

Factoring in the disenfranchised and others who are under employed, the real unemployment rate stands at 16.5 % in June; the highest on records dating to 1994. All told, 14.7 million people were unemployed in June.

Today’s report marked the 18th straight month of job loss in the United States; further weakening consumer spending and the overall attitude of a strong, robust economic recovery in the near term.

We have experienced a Great Recession caused by structural problems in our financial system, and now we will have to endure a normal recession that is dictated by slow growth and high unemployment.

Americans Getting Discouraged

The president tried to reassure the American public that the economy will recover in time, as it took time to have the economy get to the position where are in. He called the report “sobering news” and said it would take “more than a few months” to turn the economy around.

“While there are continuing signs that the recession is slowing, this is not much comfort to Americans who have lost their job,” Obama said in a Rose Garden appearance after meeting energy business leaders. The president faces a growing political problem as more and more Americans feel unsatisfied with the result of their $787 billion in taxes spent on the recovery package.

Where would we be without the trillions of dollars in government intervention?