“Escape Velocity” — Good News on February Jobs Numbers

The Great Recession is way worse than we ever imagined.

What a thrill to open my newspaper over the weekend and see the headline: “Hopes surge as job growth rises sharply.”

The folks at the Times reported that February 2011 might be the point when the country “finally turned the corner.” With the addition of 192,000 people hired nationwide, one prominent economist described the recovery as reaching “escape velocity.” Sure, only 12,500 of those were in California, but hey, it’s a start. There are too many people suffering from unemployment, underemployment, or from working like a dog because so many others in the office were laid off — we need this thing to end.