The Great Recession, as we call it now, began in August 2007,after the U.S.housing bubble began to burst. It went global acouple of months later before the bottom fell out completely inSeptember 2008.

And while some say the crisis ended in June2009, a lot of still unemployed people (including some stillemployed who thought they might be retired by now) might take issuewith that date.

Bankruptcies, falling home values, and plummeting stocks markedthe worst economic downturn this country's seen since the 1930s.Real GDP tumbled, capital investment vanished, and income levelsfell. One Bloomberg report from 2009 estimated that, globally,companies saw a loss of more than $14 trillion in value.

But it's the unemployment rate that gets the most headlines—andmost directly affects the broker business. The employment marketreally began hemorrhaging jobs in December 2007. By September 2008,the jobless rate really started to tick up, with the bankruptcy ofthe venerable investment firm Lehman Brothers shaking the market toits core. By October 2009, the unemployment rate reached an uglymilestone, hitting 10 percent, before slowly ticking back down.

And while these figures have understandably received a lot ofattention, they don't come anywhere near The Depression-era levelsof 25 percent. But what's made this downturn—and subsequentrecovery—so historically different is the glacial pace of jobrecovery. Three-and-a-half years after that 10 percent peak, thejobless rate still lingers around 7.6 percent. And this is afterhundreds of thousands have given up on the job marketaltogether.

According to Investors.com, to offer just one example, roughly5.4 million people gave up on the job market and headed for thefederal disability rolls since President Obama took office at theheight of the crisis.

 It's the malingering jobless rate, and a growingnumber of uninsured, that have driven far-reaching legislation,such as Frank-Dodd and the Patient Protection and Affordable CareAct.

Finally, most of the jobs lost during the great recession—nearlytwo-thirds, in fact—paid middle-class wages. And this recovery hasbeen predominately powered by lower-paying jobs, which of coursetypically means lower levels of employee benefits, if any atall.