What was going on when I was born?

The nation's unemployment rate rose to 9 percent in March, matching the highest level since World War II, the Labor Department announced today. There were nearly 9.9 million people out of work. The unemployment rate tied the postwar record set in May 1975, at the end of the 1973-75 recession. Most economists expect the unemployment rate to continue to rise in the next several months, even if an economic recovery begins soon. ''One can expect the unemployment rate, if it behaves as it has in the past, to continue upward,'' said Janet L. Norwood, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics.

Congressional leaders are being told privately that even if President Reagan's budget is adopted the Administration expects the 1983 deficit to reach $124 billion, Congressional sources disclosed today. This would be $32 billion more than the Administration estimated eight weeks ago, These sources also said that if none of the present programs were cut and if no taxes were increased, the deficit would run about $180 billion next year, $220 billion in the fiscal year 1984 and $240 billion in 1985, according to informal estimates from the Office of Management and Budget. These revised estimates have caused such leading Senate Republicans as Bob Dole of Kansas, the Finance Committee chairman, to join Democrats in asserting that it will be ''tough to bring next year's deficit under $100 billion'' even if the Administration is able to work out an effective bipartisan compromise. Further Talks Today The compromise effort was pursued again today by James A. Baker 3d, the White House chief of staff, in a meeting with Representative Robert H. Michel of Illinois, the House Republican leader, and other senior Congressional figures, but no details of the session were disclosed.

Governor Carey today assailed the budget approved by the Legislature and said it would cause a deficit of $500 million this year and more than $1 billion next year. ''The simple fact is that the program of the Legislature is for more spending, but with insufficient revenues to support that spending,'' Mr. Carey said. ''Also disturbing is the failure of the Legislature to consider structural reforms essential to our transportation, criminal-justice and educational systems.'' Mr. Carey called on the legislative leaders to cut their increases in state aid to school districts in half, eliminate increases for higher education and approve new taxes and fees to finance other spending increases. The Governor said he would detail his proposals to revise the budget next week.

President Reagan signed an executive order today giving Government officials broader authority to withhold information from the public on grounds of national security. Administration spokesmen said the new Executive Order on National Security Information would also make it Excerpts from the order, page 9. more difficult for judges to declassify information sought under the Freedom of Information Act. The order reverses a 25-year trend toward a less restrictive Government information policy. It supersedes an order signed by President Carter in 1978 that Reagan Administration officials regarded as too lenient.

The leader of the extreme right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance said today that ''we are planning to incorporate'' the centrist Christian Democratic Party in the new Government of El Salvador, but he rejected the idea of retaining the Christian Democratic President of the ruling junta. ''We will share the destiny of our country with the Christian Democratic Party,'' Roberto d'Aubuisson said at a news conference at the headquarters of his Nationalist Republican Alliance. But he said the party would not accept Jose Napoleon Duarte's continuing as President. The Christian Democrats gained the largest number of votes and the most seats in the assembly, but the five rightist parties that together polled a majority of votes in last Sunday's election have been trying to assemble a coalition to limit the Christian Democrats' power.

Nine people belonging to a group protesting the planned Israeli withdrawal from Sinai were arrested today when they tried to land on the Sinai coast from a yacht.

Four Druse in the Golan Heights were wounded in the legs today by Israeli troops, and six soldiers were slightly injured as clashes erupted over attempts to force the Druse to accept Israeli identification cards after the annexation of the territory. Long quiet and devoid of overt anti-Israeli activity, the Golan Heights region has grown tense since its annexation last December, with many pro-Syrian Druse agitating against the Israeli actions. Several prominent figures have been arrested on charges of incitement, and the entire area has been cut off from Israel for about a month, with no movement permitted in or out by Druse or by Israelis who are not residents.

The United States twice vetoed Security Council resolutions today, once to protect Washington's policy in the Americas and once to defend Israel. The first resolution would have kept alive in the United Nations Nicaragua's charge that the United States threatens imminent invasion. Washington insisted that the Organization of American States was the proper forum for Managua's complaint. Twelve Council members voted for the document, with the United States voting against and Britain and Zaire abstaining. The second resolution demanded that Israel restore the Arab officials removed from three towns in the occupied West Bank. The United States viewed this as one-sided.

Irish nationalist guerrillas wounded a British soldier today by setting off a mine by remote control as his armored patrol vehicle passed over it near here, the police said.

To underscore the importance of retaining American bases in the Philippines, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger today toured the Subic Bay Naval Station and Clark Air Base. The installations are vital links in an 11,000-mile supply line to the American fleet in the Indian Ocean. That line begins in the continental United States and flows by ship and aircraft to the bases here and then on to the tiny island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and to the fleet of 20 to 30 ships that are on station there. Without the bases at Subic Bay and Clark, the maintenance of that fleet, which is already costly, would become even more expensive and physically difficult. Naval officers said that it costs $433,000 a day to keep one aircraft carrier there.

In the midst of what the Polish Government calls a ''public discussion'' on the future of the trade union movement, the officially controlled press and broadcasting outlets are stepping up a campaign against the suspended Solidarity union. The press, television and radio have charged that some of the union's leaders had ties with Western centers of subversion and were turning to terrorism to overthrow Communism. The impression created among Poles by the campaign is that the martial-law authorities are unlikely to permit Solidarity to be revived as an independent union or that they may decide to abolish it. Such a course was advocated in print for the first time this week.

The Navy said today that one of its cargo planes with 11 people aboard was missing and presumed down in the Mediterranean.