CNN

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The hemorrhaging of American jobs accelerated at a record pace at the end of 2008, bringing the year's total job losses to 2.6 million or the highest level in more than six decades.

A sobering U.S. Labor Department jobs report Friday showed the economy lost 524,000 jobs in December and 1.9 million in the year's final four months, after the credit crisis began in September.

The steep annual drop in jobs marked the highest yearly job-loss total since 1945, the year in which World War II ended.

November, in which 584,000 jobs were lost, and December marked the first time in the 70-year history of the report in which the economy lost more than 500,000 jobs in consecutive months.

Construction employment shrank further by 101,000 jobs, and the rate of construction unemployment soared to 15.3% - by far the highest of any group.

CHRON
New-home construction plunged to an all-time low in December, capping the worst year for builders on records dating back to 1959.

That's us. That's my family. So please don't tell me the economy isn't that bad, that it's not a big deal. Because maybe it isn't for you and yours, and how great for you, but for mine and millions of others, it is a big deal. For my co-worker who is 2 months behind on her mortgage payment, because her husband is a self-employed plumber, it is a big deal. For my friend whose husband is a self-employed landscaper it is something to worry about. They've lost everything they've worked so hard for. There is no unemployment when you are self-employed. So no work = no money. Try that with a family of six. Try finding a job in the already dismal construction field. Try crying yourself to sleep every night, because you are struggling to keep your head above water. Try sucking up your pride and filing for heat assistance. Try hiding all your feelings from friends and family. Try being the best parent you can even when you're already at the end of your rope both emotionally and physically. Try explaining to a child why they can't have a new coat this year, because it isn't in the budget.

I'm not looking for sympathy. It's not self-pity that prompts me to write this, it's because I'm sick and tired of hearing people minimalize the state of the economy. I know it has ebbed and flowed throughout history, I know it will eventually improve, but for here and now, for a lot of us, it sucks.

Now that I've got that off my chest, in the words of Clark W. Griswold,
"Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol?"