Opinion: One Cheer for the Unemployment Number

The sharp drop in the unemployment rate to 9 percent should be treated as good news. Any drop, after all, is welcome.

But just how good this news is depends entirely on how low your expectations are for this economic recovery.

After all, the unemployment rate has been at or above 9 percent for 21 months now -- a grim record that hasn't been seen since the Great Depression.

And keep in mind, too, that Christina Romer, then head of the White House's Council of Economic Adviser, predicted in January 2009 unemployment wouldn't get above 8 percent with the economic stimulus plan -- it was forecast to be around 7 percent by now.

The administration has since explained that the recession was more severe than was thought when that forecast was made, although the downturn officially ended just six months after that report went out.

The unemployment picture doesn't look any better when you compare it with economic recoveries from previous deep and long recessions.

According to the recession scorekeepers at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the last recession officially ended in June 2009. That means the economy has been in a recovery mode for 19 months.

So how does the current jobless picture relate to comparable points in recoveries from the previous two worst post-World War II recessions -- the ones in 1973-75 and 1981-82? See for yourself.

Unemployment chart comparing rate of unemployment 19-months into recovery for the last three recessions.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Keep in mind that the jobless rate during the 1981-82 recession peaked at 10.8 percent -- higher than the 10.1 percent reached in the latest downturn. But 19 months into that recovery, it had already fallen to 7.2 percent.

The picture looks even worse when you compare the average length of unemployment at comparable points in these economic recoveries.

Unemployment chart comparing weeks of unemployment 19-months into recovery for the last three recessions.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

In commenting on the current unemployment figure, Austan Goolsbee, the head of the Council of Economic Advisers, was pretty muted in his tone, saying only that "the overall trend of economic data in recent months has been encouraging" but that "there is still considerable work to do."

While the first part of Goolsbee's comment might be debatable -- depending on how you look at things -- there's no doubt about the second part. The economy will have to work triple overtime if it's ever going to catch up to previous economic recoveries.