The Jobs War

After today's employment numbers, the job gap stands at almost 11.3 million jobs.

How long will it take to erase this gap? If future job growth continues at a rate of roughly 208,000 jobs per month, the average monthly job creation for the best year for job creation in the 2000s, it would take 136 months (more than 11 years). ...

this is a social catastrophe that large parts of the establishment have deemed basically acceptable. They're not in favor of mass unemployment. But they don't consider it a real emergency, like a war or natural disaster, that justifies huge spending to lift us out of it. It's hard to escape the conclusion that this attitude reflects the enormous distance between elite circles, where unemployment is fairly low, and less-educated communities that are experiencing a real depression.
---Jonathan Chiat, 7/16  (my bold)