WASHINGTON --- Being unemployed hurts more today than it did in 1982, the last time the jobless rate hit 10 percent.

Americans have more than triple the debt today, and less than half the savings. They spend 10 weeks longer off the job. A bigger share of them have no health insurance, leaving them a medical emergency away from financial ruin.

Those factors magnify the threat of foreclosure and bankruptcy.

Donald Schenk has been without work both times. It's worse now, he says. When Mr. Schenk lost his job at a phone company in the early 1980s, he was able to find several temporary jobs -- including one testing pinball machines -- until he landed full-time work nearly two years later.

But now Mr. Schenk, 55, of the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Ill., has been seeking work for a year and a half after losing his information technology job. Potential employers aren't interested "if you are not a perfect fit," he says.

The unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent in October. All told, 15.7 million Americans are out of work. Add in workers forced to settle for part-time work or those who have simply given up looking, and the rate is 17.5 percent.

Only twice since World War II has unemployment topped 10 percent -- now and from September 1982 to June 1983.

In a few respects, life is better today for the unemployed than it was then. Unemployment benefits are more generous, adjusted for inflation, and the Internet makes job searches easier. And thanks in part to higher home values, Americans are worth more now. Measured in 2009 dollars, net worth comes to about $173,000 per person, compared with $94,000 in 1982, according to Lynn Reaser, the president of the National Association for Business Economics.

A much larger share of jobs these days -- more than four out of five -- are in the service sector, such as tax preparers, hair stylists and retail clerks. Manufacturing, which typically offers more generous benefits, accounts for less than 9 percent of payrolls today -- down from 19 percent in 1982.

Back then, the United Auto Workers persuaded the Big Three auto companies to pay up to 95 percent of the gap between a laid-off worker's unemployment benefits and what he or she made on the job.

With the decline of unions, "that would be inconceivable today," says University of Illinois professor Michael LeRoy, who studies unions. Lawrence Mishel, the president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, says the ripple effects of the rising unemployment rate will be felt for years. He predicts the poverty rate for children will rise to 27 percent in 2011, from 18 percent in 2007.