HOPE AND CHANGE: “Unemployment rose again in the Chicago area last month, and is now approaching the 10 percent mark. . . . But compared to some metro areas, Chicago isn’t faring badly. There are 109 metropolitan areas in the country that posted unemployment rates of 10 percent or more in March, up from a mere 14 such areas in 2008. The highest was in El Centro, Calif., where unemployment stood at 25.1 percent – as bad as the national average during the depths of the Great Depression in 1933.”