"So Is It Working?" That's the title the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers gave to her speech before the Economic Club of Washington this morning.

The "it" is the stimulus program put in place by the administration and Congress early this year.

And what is Christina Romer's answer?

"Absolutely."

Here's more of what Romer had to say:

— "After we administered the medicine, an economy that was in free fall has stabilized substantially, and now looks as though it could begin to recover in the second half of the year. The timing and strength of this change is highly suggestive that the stimulus has been important."

— "Calculations imply that employment is now about 485,000 jobs above what it otherwise would have been during the second quarter of 2009."

— "It is important to realize that job growth will almost certainly lag the turnaround in real GDP growth. The consensus forecast is for the employment statistics we get tomorrow to show that the U.S. economy continued to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs in July. Given that GDP growth was still negative in the second quarter, this is all but inevitable. And, it is unacceptable. Unfortunately, even once GDP begins to grow, it will likely take still longer for employment to stop falling and begin to rise."

— "Given how far the economy has declined, recovery will be a long, hard process. Even if GDP growth is relatively robust going forward, it will take a substantial time to restore employment to normal and bring the unemployment rate back down to usual levels."

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