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In reply to the discussion: The lowest jobless rate since 2008 [View all]whopis01
(3,560 posts)Or at least pretty much tied for the slowest?
I understand that a lot of the reporting - particularly the reporting that wants to blame Obama - looks at the length of time being the longest and reports that as the slowest. But length and speed are not the same thing.
So, to measure the slowness, you should look at the slope of the graph - the change in unemployment over the change in time.
When you look at that, it appears to have a lower slope than any of the other recoveries. Arguably, the 2001 recovery has roughly the same slope, and the 1990 recovery is not too much faster. But clearly many others (1948, 1953, 1957, 1960, 1974, 1980, 1981) have a much steeper slope and are thus faster recoveries.
One of the other trends that jumps out at me from that graph is a general tendency of the recoveries to get slower and slower over time. Clearly the 1948 recovery is the quickest, followed closely by the 1953 and 1957. But by the time you get to 1990 and 2001 the rate has slowed done a great deal.
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