There's nothing worse to me than watching politics and religion on TV on a Sunday morning. But the Great Recession has encouraged me to occasionally watch Meet the Press, a show I really dislike. Christina Romer was interviewed yesterday. A clip from the transcript:
MR. GREGORY: When do you expect you will be able to say the recession is over?
DR. ROMER: Well, I'm not going to say the recession is over until the unemployment rate is down to normal levels, until...
MR. GREGORY: Which would be?DR. ROMER: You know, again--are you asking me, you know, timing?
MR. GREGORY: No, what's a normal level?
DR. ROMER: Well, the normal, you know, where we were before the recession is sort of in the--certainly in the 5 percent range. That is, you know, what Americans are, are used to.
MR. GREGORY: Can that be accomplished in a year's time?
DR. ROMER: Well, it--we'd have--I think we're going to--it's going to take--you know, this recession took a long time coming, it's going to take a long time coming out. We can make incredible progress. We can get that unemployment rate coming down. The--you know, the whole key is not just, you know, growing again. We've got to grow robustly. That's how you get a lot of job creation, that's how you get a lot of progress on the unemployment rate.
So let's not forget those words, coming from the highest of auspices: the recession won't be over until unemployment hits 5%. Let's see if she and her staff declare it over well before we reach that benchmark. My conjecture: they surely will.
