Recovering the Lost Job Versus Monthly Job creation Rates

From the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution (a Washington left of center org aligned with Dems & Libs, though self-describes as non-partisan):

 If the economy adds about 208,000 jobs per month...it will take until February 2020—8 years—to close the jobs gap. With a more optimistic rate of 321,000 jobs per month,  the economy will reach pre-recession employment levels by April 2016—not for another four years. Under even the most optimistic projections for employment growth, it will take many years to return to “normal.”

See my article in Examiner.com: http://www.examiner.com/recession-in-los-angeles/are-we-there-yet-straight-line-extrapolating-the-unemployment-trend, for another estimatefor the time to recover the lost jobs based on extrapolation of trends.