The Debts of the Spenders: California Unemployment Rate Breaks 11%

And these are the official rates. One wonders just how bad the situation truly is. Meanwhile, the stock and equity markets continue to price in green shoots. More like green weeds.

The recession continued to punish California as employers cut 66,500 jobs in June to put the state at an unemployment rate of 11.6 percent, the nation's sixth highest.

A report issued Friday by the Employment Development Department in Sacramento also hints at how the state budget deficit will affect California, which lost 6,700 government jobs in June.

"That's the tip of the iceberg," said Stephen Levy with the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto.

Levy said layoffs and furloughs of state workers will worsen the state economy, which has already been hit harder than the nation as a whole by the collapse of the housing bubble.

The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.5 percent. Michigan has the nation's highest rate of 15.2 percent.

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