Employment During the Latest Recession

I know, I didn't write a post yesterday. I'll write two tonight and beg for your forgiveness.

How depressed has employment been during this latest recession? Check out this graph. The grey areas indicate recessions in the U.S.

Basically, this recession sucked, and still continues to suck even though it is technically over.

From what I can tell, this graph shows the ratio of those employed divided by the total population. In other words, it is a measure of unemployment. One benefit of this method is that it includes those who have given up looking for work, which the unemployment rate does not include.

I originally saw this graph on Paul Krugman's blog, which is worth a look. It came from here. Play around with the date range and other factors if you're an econ nerd like me.