Yes This Is a Great Recession

TW: I will not digress into the tedious memes now circulating. The "green shootists" (the happy talk about economic stats usually based on the dreaded 2nd derivative or rate of change improving) are being overtaken by the "brown weeders" (the grumpy talk about the economic stats in absolute and other terms still being quite nasty).

The above graph though portrays in one (relatively) simple graph the depth of this Great Recession. As one can see, the duration and depth of the plunge in employment (in % terms not absolute so the population growth over the past 60 years is equivalized) during this recession is the worst since WWII or more specifically since GD 1.0. One can also see that the declines will almost certainly continue. One does not need to understand calculus (i.e. 2nd derivatives) to eyeball how the lines on the graphs for employment do not just turn on a dime, they change gradually. The current line has a while to run yet.

Btw, I posted last month on how the birth/death model is softening the job loss number. The BLS threw in +185K jobs this month. The real numbers are likely at least that much worse.