Record-breaking times

More than 1 in 10 California workers were unemployed in January, the largest percentage in nearly 26 years, the state reported today. The 10.1% jobless rate is the highest since June 1983 and not far below the 11% record set in November 1982 at the worst point of a severe recession, according to the governor’s office.

New-home sales tumbled to a record-low annual pace in January, and there’s no relief in sight as mounting damage from the collapsed housing market pushes the country deeper into recession. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that sales fell 10.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309,000, the worst showing on records going back to 1963. It was a weaker showing than the pace of 330,000 that economists expected and shattered the previous all-time monthly low set in September 1981.

Housing starts dropped 68% since 2005 when 208,000 new homes -- the high water mark -- were built to about 66,000 in 2008 -- the lowest number since 1954.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller U.S. national home price index fell 18% in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared with the same period a year earlier, the largest decline in the index’s 21-year history. The sharpest year-to-year declines were in Phoenix (down 34%), Las Vegas (33%), San Francisco (31%), Miami (29%) and Los Angeles, including Orange County (26%).

Overall, U.S. home prices are now at 2003 levels, according to the index.