41% is the
true unemployment rate
That number isn't going to get better for a long time.
Only if Nate Silver is right...as of yesterday.
I'm reading
Nate Silver's book, and it's got some interesting things to say about the unemployment rate following the recession caused by the collapse of the financial markets following the housing bubble's burst.First, unlike most recessions, where recovery generally comes relatively quickly, recessions caused by financial crises generally have a much slower recovery (like 4-6 years); and based on the experiences of other countries, the unemployment rate never truly recovers to pre-crisis levels.
Second, future unemployment rates are very hard to predict in general; and the effect of a stimulus is also very hard to know (either as a prediction or even in hindsight). So the Obama administration's infamous
graph showing what would happen to the unemployment rate with and without the stimulus was kind of a silly exercise. It predicted that unemployment would peak at about 8% with a stimulus, and would peak at about 9% without a stimulus. In fact, it peaked at just over 10% with a stimulus. As a best guess, the prediction in the graph wasn't unreasonable. But it should have come with a big asterisk next to it saying, "This is just a wild guess. Anything between 6% and 10% over the next six years, with or without a stimulus, is well within expectations." (That wouldn't have been as persuasive to Congress, however, in selling the stimulus.) In any case, we've hovered between 8% and 10% since the recession hit. We're back down closer to 8% now, perhaps headed toward 7% or even 6% over the next couple years. But we probably won't get down to pre-crisis, sub-5% levels in the foreseeable future. But, really, nobody knows.