
Alan Berube, Brookings -- The Great Recession created some of the toughest employment conditions that American workers experienced in the postwar period. The economy overall shed 8.7 million jobs in 2008 and 2009, and the unemployment rate reached a 25-year high of 10 percent in 2009. That year, more than 14 million Americans were looking for work but unable to find it, more than double the number before the recession started.