Butler County residents aren't immune from the anxiety over what's happening on the national economic front. Action by Congress to shore up the banking and Wall Street situation might relax some of the fears, but uneasiness is destined to persist as the nation waits to see whether the rescue plan works as advertised.

For many people here and elsewhere who were skeptical about President George W. Bush's plan for a portion of Social Security money to be invested on Wall Street, the failure of the president's proposal no doubt is now being regarded as a godsend.

The idea of a Wall Street-Social Security relationship probably is dead for at least a decade, regardless of what dire predictions are forthcoming regarding Social Security for the decades ahead.

Rightly or wrongly, the feeling of average Americans is likely to be that if this country has the financial wherewithal to bail out the wealthy banking and Wall Street interests to the tune of $700 billion or more, it should have the money to keep Social Security from going belly-up as well — even with the temporary strains on the program stemming from the baby boom generation's pending retirement.

But the national front is not the only basis for concern, unfortunately. Like many other states, Pennsylvania is feeling negative impacts from the national economic downturn, albeit if not as serious as what is being seen in some other states.

That the situation is far from rosy in the Keystone State is exemplified by the commonwealth's latest unemployment figure, which in August reached a five-year high of 5.8 percent.

That figure is below the national total of 6.1 percent, but it shows that this state isn't going to avoid the challenges other states are encountering, just as very bad news continues to flow from the Nation's Capital.

Gov. Ed Rendell has taken a positive step, by way of ordering a state government hiring freeze and spending cuts. The goal is to save $200 million to avert a budget shortfall next June.

While the hiring freeze won't help the state's unemployment rate, it represents the lesser of two evils, the more serious being the do-nothing option that could spawn a deficit, necessitating painful cuts for the 2009-10 budget or, worse, a tax increase.

Rendell described his orders as a pre-emptive action to avert a budget shortfall. Most average Americans who don't understand the intricate workings of Wall Street and the banking industry no doubt are wondering why no pre-emptive moves were set in motion to avert the problems that Washington's latest bailout proposals are aimed at fixing.

Many average Americans not in tune with high finance probably also are puzzled over how quick explanations for the national economic woes have come forth in the past week or so, but no one came forward to address the evolving situation before it reached crisis proportions.

Those Americans' views are simplistic when factored against the complexity of the situation, but even with a rudimentary understanding, they have just cause to be angry.

As for Pennsylvania's uncertain employment picture, the state's unemployment ranks swelled by 31,000 last month, to 372,000. Meanwhile, the number of nonfarm jobs declined by 5,900 statewide.

The statewide jobless rate was 4.4 percent in August 2007 and was 5.4 percent in July of this year. While the latest number might go down during the next month or two because of holiday season temporary hirings, the status of the national economic picture is sure to affect buyers' confidence as the holidays approach and could result in fewer holiday hirings.

While it's crucial that officials in Washington remain focused on their efforts to stabilize the big economic picture, the Pennsylvania General Assembly clearly has plenty to be concerned about as well.

The growing consensus has to be — in Pennsylvania and across the nation: "When are we going to get some good news for a change so our confidence can be restored?"

Unfortunately, all considered amid an entrenching attitude of pessimism, that seems unlikely anytime soon.