The national unemployment rate held steady at 9.7% in February. However, a Purdue economist predicts that it will be three to four years before employment falls to pre-recession levels.

[Purdue economist Larry] DeBoer said consumer spending in the United States is being held back by the 10 percent unemployment rate. The economy grew 5.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. Economists question whether that growth rate can be sustained.

“Even at 5.9 percent, the unemployment rate would only come down from about 10 percent to about 8.5 percent by the end of the year,” DeBoer said. “This tells me we have at best three or four years before we get unemployment back down to 5 percent — where it was at the beginning of the recession.”

An increase in consumer spending would help decrease the unemployment rate, but with unemployment being what it is, consumers are not spending, DeBoer said.

DeBoer said the Federal stimulus package has played a role in keeping the unemployment rate lower than what it could have been.

“The whole idea behind stimulus is to step in temporarily, fill in the hole and add to the spending. There’s no doubt that the spending from the stimulus package has kept the unemployment rate from going up more than it would have,” he said. “Without the stimulus, the unemployment rate might have been 11 or 12 percent instead of 10 percent.”

Tipton County is in the process of creating an economic development commission.

Three Indiana companies were ranked among the most-admired by Fortune magazine, while Bloomburg BusinessWeek named Fishers the nation’s best affordable suburb.

An Indianapolis television station looks at how many jobs promised by companies moving to or expanding in Indiana actually happen.

Finally, on a lighter note, a new Indiana University study finds that Hoosiers differ on what constitutes having sex.