U.S. economy recovery this year won’t decrease unemployment?

Christina Romer, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said while speaking on C-SPAN, that in spite of the fact the economy may show signs of recovery later this year the unemployment rate will unlikely decrease until 2010. She said that unemployment is expected to increase even if gross domestic product begins to grow in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Romer said that GDP has to grow at a rate of about 2.5% before unemployment will fall and it is "unfortunately pretty realistic" that the unemployment rate could hit 9.5%. She added that a rate of 3% is a reasonable GDP-growth estimate for 2010.

Still Robert Reich, former labor secretary under President Bill Clinton and an adviser for the Obama campaign, has another view. He said that that the rate of growth would have to be 4.5% before unemployment levels begin to reverse.

Meantime the Department of Labor reported on Friday last week that the unemployment rate rose at a pace unseen over 26 years to 8.9% in April.