The numbers reported Thursday by the Mortgage Bankers
 Association show clearly that rising job losses are
 worsening the nation's housing troubles and threaten
 the Obama administration's efforts to keep owners from
 losing their homes.

 The quarterly National Delinquency Survey showed that
 almost one in 10 homeowners with a mortgage was at
 least one payment late, and thus delinquent, while
 another 4 percent had entered the foreclosure process
 on their loan.

 Nowhere is there less sunshine in this picture than
 Florida. The survey found that from April to June, 12
 percent of all Florida mortgages were in the
 foreclosure process and about 23 percent of all
 Florida mortgages_ almost one in four_ were late on
 payments or under threat of foreclosure.

 In California, 10.8 percent of all mortgages were 90
 days or more past due or in foreclosure. While the
 Golden State accounts for 13.3 percent of U.S.
 mortgages, it's also the site of almost 20 percent of
 foreclosure starts from April to June.

 More worrisome is a trend emerging deeper in the
 numbers: Subprime loans given to the weakest borrowers
 are now a declining portion of delinquency and
 foreclosure rates, while prime loans, given to the
 most highly qualified borrowers, are a rising share.

 "The rise in prime delinquencies . . . is a clear
 indication that employment is the driver of mortgage
 performance, with the worst performance coming in
 those areas that are combining jobs losses with large
 drops in home values like California and Florida," Jay
 Brinkmann, the group's chief economist, told
 McClatchy. "We won't see a turnaround in delinquencies
 until we see improvements in employment, most likely
 the middle of next year."