comparing unemployment over recessions from the last 40 years

An interesting graph from John Cogan of the Hoover Institution-- attached to a WSJ op-ed piece-- indicating that this recession is within the norm-- at least so far.

This recession has had a quicker, sharper impact on unemployment.

Note also the weird, lagged relationship between GDP (a "recession") and unemployment in the mid-1970s.

So far at least, the current downturn, which officially began in December 2007, isn't much more severe than the average of all recessions since 1970. This month the downturn turns 15 months old, which is one month less than the recession of 1981-82, though job loss hasn't yet been as severe. (Today's jobs report for February could change that.) The recession of 1973-75 lasted 16 months and job loss was also worse.

Many Americans may have forgotten those nasty recessions because the last two -- in 1990-91 and 2001 -- were only eight months long and shallow. But even in the worst modern downturns, after 15 months the sources of recovery were forming and the end was in sight.

The larger point is that economies don't spiral down forever without a reason and without policy encouragement. What's worrying about the plunge in equities since January 2, and especially in the last week since Mr. Obama released his radical budget, is that it has come amid the unveiling of the President's policy agenda....