The national unemployment rate is 8.9 percent and even higher in places like Cambridge, Md. So you might find it strange to see NBC advocating an expansion of legal migrant labor when so many Americans are struggling.

Nonetheless, former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw did just that in the first part of a new series called "American Character." The former anchor will travel U.S. Highway 50 from coast to coast to report on people struggling in this economy. On "Nightly News" May 27, Brokaw visited a crab picking house in Cambridge, Md. that's suffering from a shortage of workers.

"Jack Brooks runs J.M. Clayton's, one of the oldest crab processors in the area," Brokaw said. "He's got all the crabs he can handle. What he doesn't have, even in this brutal economy, is enough workers to pick them."