How much is too much? When do we start to worry? When can we relax and say, "Thank goodness, it's over?"

These are questions racing through our minds as we swim against the flood of economic news now testing our courage. Each day seems to bring new evidence of a serious downturn in the American and Hoosier economy. Stock prices are falling, and unemployment is rising. Companies are closing, and our local governments are cutting services.

For tens of millions of Americans, these are new experiences. They do not remember the last great recession in 1982. Let's look at Indiana's unemployment experiences then and now.

The unemployment rate for Indiana in October 2008 was 6 percent. This means that of the 3.2 million Hoosiers in the labor force, 3 million have jobs, and 200,000 are looking for work. If people do not have jobs and are not looking for work, they are defined as not unemployed. They're out of the labor force.

Is 6 percent unemployment an important level? The U.S. figure is 6.1 percent. We can rightfully claim that we are below the rate for the nation. But does that matter? In economics, there are no magic numbers. But if we had 5 percent unemployment, there would be approximately 32,000 more Hoosiers at work.

This data has not benefitted from seasonal adjustment to decrease the effect of normal variations over the course of the year. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in October for Indiana was 6.4 percent and 6.5 percent for the nation. Whichever set of data is used, the issues remain the same.

Yes, our unemployment rate is lower than those of our five neighboring states. Is this supposed to indicate some inherent superiority on our part?

Relative to our neighbors, our position has deteriorated over the past year. In October 2007, Indiana's unemployment rate was 28th in the nation at 4.1 percent while Kentucky (the best of our neighbors) ranked 39th at 4.8 percent. This year in October, Indiana ranked 32nd, and Kentucky ranked 36th. Our margin of "regional excellence" is shrinking.

But these are small differences of little significance compared to what we experienced in 1982. In November of that year, Indiana's unemployment rate was (a seasonally adjusted) 12.8 percent, and we had 334,000 people unemployed. This was part of a 26-month-long stretch from October 1981 to November 1983 during which the unemployment rate in Indiana was 10 percent or worse. We had last seen 6 percent in June 1979 and would not be back down to that level until July 1987.

The drama of the current recession is that it is, thus far, deeper and swifter than the 1982 collapse. In the past year, Indiana's labor force has grown by 39,700 people (1.2 percent) compared to a decline of 30,500 (-1.2 percent) in 1982. Back then, the Indiana economy had seen double-digit unemployment rates for over a year. We have yet to see 7 percent.

This recession looks like more of a shock but may be of shorter duration and severity than the 1982 decline.

Opinions expressed solely are those of the writer. Morton Marcus is an economist, author and speaker formerly at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. He can be reached at mortonjmarcus@yahoo.com.