WASHINGTON (PAI) – The recession is officially over, but the nation is in a so-called economic recovery that “only a statistician could love,” with long-tem unemployment, way more job-seekers than jobs, and jobless benefits acting as a poor man’s stimulus for the economy.

The comment about statisticians was made by Heidi Shierholtz of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute think-tank, which hosted a seminar featuring several high-level economists on May 26.

The EPI panel included Labor Department Chief Economist Jesse Rothstein, who was joined by economists Ray Chetty of Harvard and Till Marco van Wer of Columbia. Rothstein called the economy “not normal,” with unemployment affecting different groups of people than it did before, and the recovery – in terms of seeing improved joblessness numbers – taking longer than prior slumps.

“The number of job openings is 40% below what it was before the recession started,” Shierholtz said.  And one of the others pointed out that in December 2007, when the Great Recession began, there were 1.5 job-seekers per opening. Now there are 5.6.

Following are a few of the numbers and scenarios bandied about at the seminar:

*Rothstein said the Obama Administration forecasts that the nation will still have a 7 percent unemployment rate in 2014 and then full employment somewhere between 2015 and 2017. Economists define ‘full employment” as an economy with a 5-6 percent jobless rate.

“We’re still in a fairly deep hole,” Rothstein warned. “Sure, GDP (Gross Domestic Product) went up” – formally ending the recession – “but we had a big dip in 2007-08, so there’s a trillion-dollar gap between current GDP” and what the economy would produce at full potential, he said.  As for the unemployed, Rothstein added: “They’re desperate.”

*Shierholtz noted the economy added 290,000 jobs in April, the fourth straight month of employment growth.  (There were 431,000 jobs added in May, but the numbers were vastly inflated because many of those jobs were temporary Census-taker positions).

But she said the economy would have to add about 300,000 jobs each month for five years to reduce joblessness down to 5 percent.  Before Bush took office, it was at 4 percent.  Bush left President Obama with a jobless rate of 8 percent

*Sustained GDP growth since early 2009 have led many economists to proclaim the recession is officially over.  But the panel said that for workers, it‘s still going, with unemployment in May at 9.7 percent. The slow gains anticipated in employment are another reason this recession differs from prior post-World War II slumps, they added.

*Chetty argued that helping the unemployed with long-term jobless benefits helps the economy in many ways – and not just by putting more money in workers’ pockets.

He also said studies show that extending jobless benefits typically extends the period an average recipient is out, by all of one week — again contrary to GOP claims.

Chetty said other studies have found lack of savings is a key to determining whether and how the unemployed workers spend their checks.  “These people have no savings, no income and need outside sources of money,” he said.  Jobless benefits, which produce almost $2 of economic “bang” for every dollar distributed, inject more money into the economy than other boosts – including tax credits for hiring – he added.

Long-term, the economists said that changing a “not normal” economy calls for some big-ticket solutions.  Chetty warned against accepting high unemployment rates as the “new normal.”  He cited their negative impact: Everything from workers’ long-term income declines to rising crime to less education for jobless workers’ kids, and more.

Long-term solutions they suggested included linking lengthier jobless benefits to extensive retraining of workers for jobs in growing occupations.  “And there should be a lot of infrastructure spending to put construction workers – where unemployment is more than 20 percent – on the job” and to build economic capacity, Shierholtz said.