High unemployment may last for years

Ed Morrissey on unemployment and the economy:

The last time the US suffered this kind of recession and unemployment, in 1982, it took several quarters of annualized growth of between 7%-9% in order to generate sufficient numbers of jobs to seriously lower unemployment. The long-term trend of the American economy is growth between 2.5-3%, which makes the 2010Q1 result barely a blip above average. It indicates that the current job situation may well become the “new normal,” with high unemployment remaining in place for years to come.

We will not see the kind of growth necessary to put people back to work until the government stops sending pricing signals of higher taxes and more burdensome regulation regimes. Capital will not flow back into the market under the conditions set by the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress over the last fifteen months. Instead, it will most likely flow overseas, in markets more friendly to capital investment, where the nation’s executive doesn’t offer off-the-cuff remarks about people making too much money.