But the new consensus rate of 2.6%, for a recovery now two years old, is barely above America's long-term potential and scarcely enough to bring unemployment down.

但如今经济恢复已经长达两年之久，公认的增长率为2.6%。这一增长率仅仅略高于美国的长期潜能，但若想降低失业率，还是力道不足。

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Unfortunately, several remedies that have been suggested toreduce the rate of long-term unemployment will be ineffective.

不幸的是，几个建议减少长期失业率的药方都不会有效。

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But the operative word is "long-term," and they have less relevance when the unemployment rate is at 9.5 percent and only 590,000 private-sector jobs have been created over the past six months.

但是关键词是“长期的”，当失业率维持在9.5%，过去6个月私有企业只创造出59万个工作岗位时，这些警告没有太大作用。

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"We can't celebrate a 10 percent unemployment rate, especially the long-term unemployment continues to grow in very troubling numbers,"

VOA: standard.2009.12.05

And it is that higher long-term unemployment rate in Europe that causes the overall higher unemployment rate.

FORBES: The Problem With US Unemployment Is That It Is Now Like European Unemployment

But the rate of long-term unemployment, 3 percent in January, is precisely triple its 2001-07 average, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek calculation based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data. (Those two rates 4.9 percent and 3 percent add up to the overall unemployment rate of 7.9 percent.) A striking statistic: The long-term unemployed make up 38 percent of all workers without jobs, double the average share and just a few notches down from the 2010-11 peak of 45 percent.

FORBES: Why America's Unemployment Problem Is Becoming More Like The European Problem

John Williams estimates that if U-6 counted the long-term discouraged workers, the unemployment rate would be 22.8%.

FORBES: Why Jack Welch Has A Point About Unemployment Numbers