Brad DeLong says that there was no economic recovery earlier this year, so it’s wrong to say that the recovery faltered.

But look at this chart of non-farm employment:

Throughout the second half of 2009, monthly job losses were slowing. In the first few months of 2010, progress continued, and job gains accelerated. And then something happened — the European debt crisis, the slowing of federal stimulus, the pickup in local government cuts or some combination of these factors and others. Progress stopped in the spring. The economy seemed to go in reverse.

The early months of 2010 look like a recovery — the early stages of one that had an enormous amount of ground to make up, yes, but a recovery nonetheless. The second half of 2010 (until, perhaps, last month) does not look like a recovery.

Note that the chart above shows non-Census employment. So the temporary hiring of Census workers earlier this year and the subsequent end of those jobs cannot explain the trends.

The above chart shows a three-month average of employment changes. The monthly numbers are noisier, but the same pattern is evident: