In the rest of America, the recession continues. That fact is illustrated by the following graph, recently released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office:

This graph shows the rate of long term unemployment – people who have been looking for work, but unable to find any, for over 26 weeks. In the last half century, the long term unemployment rate hasn’t been anywhere close to where it is now – not even under the economic disaster America suffered when Ronald Reagan was in the White House.