[Uncle Miltie]

So let’s make the math easy: 3.5% left to go to get back to pre-recession levels.

That excludes bringing people back from the benches of SSDI, low paying jobs for which they are overqualified, part time work, premature retirement, etc.

With a work force of 138M

http://www.numberof.net/number-of-employed-people-in-the-usa/

To abuse the math slightly, that means we need 3.5% more than 138M, or about 4.8M hires.

At the rate you cited of 165K net hires, the months to pre-recession employment would be 4.8M / 165K, or about 30 more months. Two and a half years more.

So you think it is somehow on track for a jobs recession to continue at the slovenly pace of 165K net job adds, extending the return to pre-recession employment of nearly SEVEN years?

I’ll stick with my point that >350,000 (or more!) net job adds is the velocity with which we can return to pre-recession levels in something like a timely historical fashion. See the slope of all the other post-war recessions. They ALL grew faster. We’re in the 0bameconomy, and you’re accepting it.

DON’T ACCEPT THE STATUS QUO. IT SUCKS!

[Wyatt's Torch]

I'm not "accepting" anything. I've said repeatedly that the recovery is slow (1-2% growth). I've also said that the economy is growing in spite of Obama's destructive policies on both fiscal and regulatory fronts. There is no doubt that this recovery is sub-standard. It's impossible to not agree with that. Jim Pethokoukis at AEI often shows this chart showing how substandard it is:

The point on the number of NFP improvement is valid. And it would be faster with 500K or 1000K. Point was that the average over the last 30 years is nowhere near that. Given the +165K average it will take until 2015/16 until we get back to pre-recession levels.