Importantly, economic growth over the past two years has, for the most part, been at rates insufficient to achieve sustained reductions in the unemployment rate, which has recently been fluctuating a bit above 9 percent.
The pattern of sluggish economic growth was particularly evident in the first half of this year, with real gross domestic product (GDP) estimated to have increased at an annual rate of less than 1 percent, on average, in the first and second quarters.