国际英语新闻：U.S. unemployment picture looks grim for October and beyond

High unemployment has also increased the poverty rate, and some experts said that points to a widening gap between the wealthy and the poor.

Recent U.S. census data showed a jump in the number of households living in poverty -- defined as a family of four earning less than 22,000 U.S. dollars a year -- to 14.3 percent in 2009, up from 13.2 percent the previous year. And those numbers could rise further if the economy does not turn around soon, some experts said.

At the same time, the number of millionaires grew this year. According to the Phoenix Affluent Marketing Service, the number of households with liquid assets of 1 million U.S. dollars or more grew 8 percent in the 12 months preceding June, although the figure stands at less than 2007 levels of millionaires.

"Unemployment doesn't hit everyone equally," said Isabel V. Sawhill, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "It hits people with the least amount of skills and education and experience much harder than it does the reverse. So you'd expect a recession to lead to greater inequality in income, bigger gaps, for sure."

While high earners are not immune to the sting of recession, the impact on them is less severe, she said.

Tess Stovall, senior policy advisor at Third Way, said that unless the economy makes a significant turnaround over the next year, lower-middle class families could slip out of the middle class and into the working poor.

But even solidly middle-class families will 'feel' poor even if they are not technically in poverty because of the massive amount of personal wealth lost during the recession, she said.

Americans lost nearly 26 percent of their net worth during the recession, and even though the economy has picked up in the last year, Americans' net worth is still down nearly 19 percent from pre-recession levels, she noted.

If the current economic climate persists, middle-class families will continue to struggle to get ahead and to afford traditional middle-class aspirations such as quality child care, college for their children, or a comfortable retirement, she said.

And that could widen further the income gap.