The super-slow road to even a reasonably normal economy

From Calculated Risk:

If we continue to see sluggish growth with 125,000 payroll jobs added per month (the pace this year), it will take an additional 52 months just to get back to the pre-recession level of payroll employment. If job growth picks up a little - say to 200,000 payroll jobs per month - it will take an additional 33 months to get back to the pre-recession level.

A three-year time-span seems to fit with the sluggish forecasts of recent weeks. Same with the housing market. But keep in mind that any projections beyond 12-18 months is more guesswork than sound analysis.