The economy won't recover for real until it is self sustaining. I know that unemployment is a "trailing indicator", but growth resulting from borrowing and printing to pay for unemployment benefits and temporary jobs won't hold up indefinitely. At some point we have to switch from borrowing money to pay for jobs to having jobs to pay back what we've borrowed, or we're only delaying an inevitable collapse.
That is exactly what I was trying to say. A severe economic contraction has to occur. We can take a bad one now or a worse one later. In their ignorance, the Obama policies seem to be pushing for “a worse one later.”