Jobless Rate Rises Unexpectedly to 527 Percent

Numbers issued this morning by the US Labor Department showed a sudden increase in the total count of unemployed Americans, rising sharply from 10.1 percent to 526.8 percent. Experts in both the Obama administration and at several private think tanks in some of the more upscale parts of Washington, DC, called the new numbers "unexpected."

"It's unexpected, I tell you; simply unexpected," said Herb Statisting, a number cruncher with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, which as expected is as...