Here is what the current picture of unemployment looks like on a chart:

Click on image to enlarge.

Here is a chart giving us a pictorial review of the weekly jobless claims. These are people who have reported job loss. While the Administration often speaks of 700,000 jobless claims, that did not actually happen -- close but no cigar.

We found the chart at Heritage.

You should know that, technically, the recession did NOT begin in December of '07. Rather, it began at the end of the summer of '08. That has been Midknight Review's position all along. This chart helps to make that case. Understand that there is a definition for "recession." It includes two consecutive quarters of declining GDP. That did not happen until late summer, 2008.

Typically, we are in recession for no more than 18 months. The last quarter of 2009 marked a second consecutive quarter of increasing GDP.
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