Most economists agree the Great Recession has been over for almost a year, and that the U.S. economy is not poised to fall into a “double dip” recession.

But the problems in Europe have some people questioning just how strong the U.S. economy really is. There are clearly economic fault lines.

Jobs: Employers are finally hiring once again, adding more than a half-million jobs over the past six months. More gains are expected in the months ahead.

But it’ll take years to fully regain the 8.3 million jobs lost over the past two years. Unemployment is still near 10% and when part-time workers looking for full-time work and discouraged job seekers are counted, the underemployment rate is 17.1%.

Read More: – By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com

Inflation in the 16 countries that use the euro spiked to its highest level in 15 months during March, official figures showed Wednesday.

In its preliminary estimate for the year to March, Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, said consumer prices in the eurozone rose by 1.5 percent, way above February’s equivalent rate of 0.9 percent and market expectations for a more modest increase to 1.2 percent.

Eurostat did not provide any more details but a fuller analysis of why inflation jumped to its highest level since December will emerge on April 16, when a broader analysis is published.

Separately, Eurostat said unemployment across the eurozone rose by 61,000 in February, taking the jobless rate up to 10 percent in February from 9.9 percent a month earlier — February’s rate was the highest since August 1998 but in line with market expectations.

Read More: – By Pan Pylas, AP Business Writer, the Associated Press

Unemployment increased in 27 U.S. states in February and dropped in seven, a sign the labor market needs to pick up across more regions to spur consumer spending and sustain the economic recovery.

Mississippi showed the biggest jump in joblessness with a 0.4 percentage point rise to 11.4 percent, according to figures issued today by the Labor Department in Washington. Nationally, unemployment held at 9.7 percent in February for a second month and employers cut fewer jobs than anticipated, figures from the Labor Department showed on March 5.

Today’s report indicates broad-based hiring is yet to develop following the loss of 8.4 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Florida, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina set record levels of joblessness last month.

Read More: – Bloomberg

There were 35 metropolitan areas in the United States with unemployment rates at or above 15% in January, according to a government report.

Just over half, or 19, of those unlucky cities were in California, according to the Labor Department. Michigan logged the next highest number, with 6. Overall, jobless rates increased in the vast majority of the nation’s 372 metropolitan areas.

Read More: – By Ben Rooney, staff reporter, CNNMoney

The number of Americans filing continuing claims for unemployment insurance spiked last week, the Labor Department said Thursday, as sluggish hiring continues to drag on the labor market’s recovery.

The number of people filing continuing claims jumped to 4,558,000 in the week ended Feb. 27, the most recent data available. That was up 37,000 from the preceding week’s upwardly revised 4,521,000 claims.

Economists were expecting continuing claims to remain unchanged at 4,500,000.

Continuing claims reflect people filing each week after their initial benefit week until the end of their standard benefits, which usually last 26 weeks. The figures do not include those who have moved into state or federal extensions, or people whose benefits have expired.

Read More: – By CNNMoney.com, Hibah Yousuf, staff reporter

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said yesterday that it is “very difficult’’ to envision the unemployment rate falling soon and that an economic recovery is “going to be a slow, trudging thing.’’

He also expressed concern about falling stock prices.

While the recession is “essentially over,’’ he said, “it’s very difficult to make the case that unemployment is coming down any time soon.’’ He spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press’’ program.’

Read More: – Bloomberg News

A record 2.8 million households were threatened with foreclosure last year, and that number is expected to rise this year as more unemployed and cash-strapped homeowners fall behind on their mortgages.

The number of households that received a foreclosure-related notice rose 21 percent from 2008, RealtyTrac Inc. reported Thursday. One in 45 homes were sent a filing, which includes default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions.

In December, more than 349,000 households, or one in 366 homes, were hit with a foreclosure-related notice. That represents a 14 percent spike from November and a 15 percent jump from December 2008.

Banks repossessed more than 92,000 homes, up 19 percent from November. That increase was likely due to lenders working to clear their books at the end of the year, RealtyTrac said.

Read More: – By Adrian Sainz, AP Real Estate Writer

Investors have been hit by a whiff of the “new normal,” and the implications for employment are not pleasant.

Instead of people going back to work, as optimists thought they would be as the economy improves, unemployment appears to be ingrained, with no sign of a letup. Experts have begun to question the theories that suggested a turnaround in joblessness was near.

“It’s very possible that this lasts longer than expected,” said Zach Pandl, an economist at Nomura Securities.

Productivity is skyrocketing, and corporate profits have rebounded — conditions that optimists theorized a couple of months ago would spur a rebound in jobs in 2009 and help bring the recession to an end.

But the Labor Department said Tuesday that job openings have fallen. And other recent government figures show that unemployment would be roughly 17 percent now, rather than 10 percent, except for people who have given up looking for work or settled for part-time jobs.

Read More: – By Gail MarksJarvis, The Chicago Tribune

Ten months into President Barack Obama’s first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an Associated Press analysis has found.

Spend a lot or spend nothing at all, it didn’t matter, the AP analysis showed: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation, raising questions about Obama’s argument that more road money would address an “urgent need to accelerate job growth.”

Obama wants a second stimulus bill from Congress that relies in part on more road and bridge spending, projects the president said are “at the heart of our effort to accelerate job growth.”

Construction spending would be a key part of the Jobs for Main Street Act, a $75 billion second stimulus to revive the nation’s lethargic unemployment rate and improve the dismal job market for construction workers. The House approved the bill 217-212 last month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., worked the floor for an hour; the Senate is expected to consider it later in January.

AP’s analysis, which was reviewed by independent economists at five universities, showed that strategy hasn’t affected unemployment rates so far. And there’s concern it won’t work the second time. For its analysis, the AP examined the effects of road and bridge spending in communities on local unemployment; it did not try to measure results of the broader aid that also was in the first stimulus like tax cuts, unemployment benefits or money for states.

Read More: – the Associated Press

On the surface, economic stress in some of the Sun Belt’s hardest-hit counties appeared to ease in November. But beneath some positive numbers is a region struggling to rebound from the damage of the housing crisis and recession, according to The Associated Press’ monthly analysis of economic stress in more than 3,100 U.S. counties.

In Riverside County, Calif., the nation’s 11th-most economically stressed county, unemployment dipped slightly in November. But that was due mainly to seasonal hiring by retailers — hiring that didn’t extend past the holidays.

Likewise, unemployment in counties in Arizona and Nevada, two states hammered by the recession, also dropped in November — but only because they lost jobseekers who moved away or gave up hope. Once people stop looking for jobs, they’re no longer counted as unemployed.

“Our rate isn’t going down because the economy is improving,” said Jered McDonald, an economist with the state of Nevada, which has lost about 2.5 percent of its work force since September. “It’s going down because people are either too discouraged to look for work or they’re actually leaving the state.”

Read More: – By Mike Schneider and Martin Crutsinger, the Associated Press