Gary Becker gets straight to the point:
The only real remedy for the long-term (and other) unemployed is to have the economy grow fast, as it did after the severe recession in 1982 when unemployment peaked in December of that year at 10.8%, and then fell rather rapidly. There is no magic bullet to accomplish this, but I do believe it would help a lot if the leaders in Washington did not try to radically transform various aspects of the economy while we are recovering from a serious recession, and thereby magnify the high degree of uncertainty that is typically caused by a recession. Instead, they should be concentrating on fighting the recession, and stimulating long-term economic growth.
Me: During the 1980s, the economy notched 19 quarters of 3.5 percent GDP growth or better. In the 1990s, the economy also notched 19 quarters of 3.5 percent growth or better. So far this decade before the recession? Just eight. Or look at the number of quarters of “hypergrowth”—5 percent or better. (This was JFK’s GDP goal in the 1960s, by the way.) There were 12 in the ’80s, eight in the ’90s. So far this decade? Just a single quarter, the third quarter of 2003.