In December 2011, the unemployment rate for older workers was 6.0 percent, up from 3.1 at the start of the recession, but down from its peak of 7.6 percent in February 2010.
Some experts and officials say that as the recession trickles down from New York's once-mighty financial institutions to other parts of the economy, more businesses may be tempted to leave the state — and that New York may feel compelled to enter bidding wars to keep them.
I asked finance wiz Nomi Prins to calculate America's debt-to-GDP ratio using euro rules, and she estimates that Obama's deficits are now way down from recession's peak – to 10.2percentt of GDP.
That is down from a recession high of just 7%, well below the national peak of 10.1%.
In November, that rate stood at 3.15%, which is down from the recession peak of 5% in May 2009.
It now hovers at 8 percent, down from a recession high of 12 percent but on a par with the vacancy rate from before the boom years, when sneaker and sandal shops could seem monolithic.
The recession took new car sales down from 15 million units to below 10 million, which is when GMs overhead did it in.
In the past few months however, fears of a global recession have knocked commodity prices down from records reached this summer when international demand, especially from emerging markets, was expected to offset U.S. weakness.
Property values throughout much of the city remain down from pre-recession highs, prompting many owners to seek reassessment.
Correspondingly, output per hour productivity is below the pre-recession level and actually ticked down from the second quarter of last year to the third.Britain's workers are ever less productive, and firms are snapping up ever more of them.
Most rails are exhibiting strong fiscal discipline, partly to cope with freight demand that's still far down from pre-recession levels.
