[Excerpt] A number of labor market indicators from the Current Population Survey (CPS) have pointed to a weakening labor market for more than a year, even before the onset of the current recession in December 2007 (as designated by the National Bureau of Economic Research). The official unemployment rate, for example, rose by 2.3 percentage points from its recent low of 4.4 percent in March 2007 to 6.7 percent in November 2008. The employment-population ratio, which is the proportion of the working-age population that is employed, trended down from a recent peak of 63.4 percent in December 2006 to 61.4 percent in November 2008.