Answer No. 1: The Unemployment Rate

Although the Great Recession of 2008 has been declared over, it sure doesn't feel that way.

City tax revenues were down in the first quarter of this fiscal year, due mostly to lower collection of the wage and sales tax -- two taxes tuned almost perfectly to the state of the economy.

Worse, the unemployment rate -- which showed signs of decline in the spring and summer -- has done up to new heights.

As this chart shows, the employment rate today is double what it was when Michael Nutter was elected mayor in 2007.

Although it is in double digits, that number understates the depth of joblessness.  It does not count discouraged workers -- those who have been out of work for so long they have stopped looking. It does not reflect the fact that unemployment among the young -- those 24 and younger -- is estimated as 25 percent.  It does not reflect unemployment among various ethnic and racial groups.  A Bureau of Labor Statistics sampling done in 2010 estimated that unemployment among black and Latino men was at 20 percent.

It surely is worse today.

I look at the unemployment rate as a diagnostic tool, much like a thermometer. The higher it is the worse the patient's condition. These latest numbers indicate the patient that is Philadelphia has a fever.