Bad Economic News Continues

The bad news on the economy keeps coming.

The Labor Department reported today that Wholesale inflation surged in July, leaving prices for the past year rising at the fastest pace in 27 years.

Wholesale prices shot up 1.2 percent in July, pushed higher by rising costs for energy, motor vehicles and other products. The increase was more than twice the 0.5 percent gain that economists expected.

Core prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 0.7 percent. That increase was the biggest since November 2006 and more than triple the 0.2 percent rise in core prices that had been expected.

On the housing front, The Commerce Department reproted construction of homes and apartments fell in July to the lowest level in more than 17 years.

Builders broke ground on 965,000 housing units on an annualized basis. That was down from a pace of 1.08 million in June and the weakest showing since March 1991.

Here in Florida the unemployment rate is the highest in 13 years.

The state reported the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for July was 6.1 percent, up 0.6 of a percent from the previous month.

This represents 572,000 jobless out of a labor force of 9.33 million. The rate is up two percentage points from July 2007.

The July unemployment rate is the highest since January 1995, when it was 6.5 percent. The state’s current unemployment rate is 0.4 of a percent higher than the national rate of 5.7 percent, and due to the slow down in the Florida housing market.