A jobless spike

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The economic downturn, so long and deep that it's increasingly dubbed "the Great Recession," breached a psychological barrier when the jobless rate spiked to 10.2 percent in October.

The unemployment figure was widely expected at some point to top 10 percent, but its arrival was a fresh blow for Americans struggling to make ends meet and especially for those without jobs. Not since the early 1980s has the jobless rate been so high.

The pain is even more severe under a broader measure: The underemployment rate -- including workers who have given up looking for jobs and those working part-time because they can't find full-time jobs -- stands at 17.5 percent, probably the highest since the Great Depression.

Those statistics are cold comfort, however, and belie other measures showing that the recession is over and that the economy grew at a 3.5 annualized rate between July and September. It had shrunk 6.5 percent in the first quarter when companies shed an average of 645,000 jobs a month.

Most economics expect the unemployment rate to begin falling next year as recovery takes root and businesses, always leery of adding workers in sluggish times, begin hiring again.

Recovery can't come soon enough for Americans, who in two years have seen 7 million jobs disappear along with, in many cases, their homes, savings and dreams. Even those with jobs endure sacrifice and worry although that pales by comparison with the losses of the most adversely affected.

The straits would be much more dire without the aggressive action of the federal government: the Obama administration's massive stimulus package, most of which has yet to take effect, and the innovative actions by the Federal Reserve.

While President Obama inherited the Great Recession and has striven to ameliorate its effects, he's been office long enough that the economy, for better or worse, is his. He and other incumbents will be held to account.