{"id":45661,"date":"2012-03-14T12:01:32","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T17:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media.lclark.edu\/content\/hart-landsberg\/2012\/03\/12\/the-unsustainable-recovery\/"},"modified":"2012-03-13T15:55:01","modified_gmt":"2012-03-13T20:55:01","slug":"the-unsustainable-recovery-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/03\/14\/the-unsustainable-recovery-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unsustainable Recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Reports from the Economic Front<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Great Recession ended in June 2009, which means we have been in economic expansion for almost 3\u00a0years. \u00a0Lately the news has been filled with reports of positive\u00a0economic trends, but how seriously should we take these reports?<\/p>\n

One indicator worth looking at is median household income (the red line below).\u00a0 Unfortunately its trend suggests little reason for cheer. In January 2012, median household income was\u00a0$50,020.\u00a0 That was\u00a05.4% lower than it was in June 2009.\u00a0 Even worse,\u00a0as the chart below<\/a> reveals,\u00a0after a brief uptick it\u00a0headed\u00a0back down again.<\/p>\n

\"untitled.jpg\"<\/p>\n

It is true that employment<\/a> is finally growing, a development reflected in the decline in the unemployment rate (the blue line above).\u00a0 Unfortunately,\u00a0this has done little to boost wages.\u00a0 In fact, real wages actually fell<\/a> in 2011.\u00a0 The first chart<\/a> below highlights the downward turn.\u00a0 The second chart<\/a> reveals just how far per capita\u00a0earnings remain below\u00a0historical trend.<\/p>\n

\"us-real-wages_thumb.gif\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"real-wage-and-salary-disbursements-per-capita.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This situation\u00a0helps to explain why growth has been so\u00a0anemic.\u00a0 As the Wall Street Journal\u00a0wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Many economists in the past few weeks have again reduced their estimates of growth.\u00a0 The economy by many estimates is on track to grow at an annual rate of less than 2% in the first three months of 2012.\u00a0 The economy expanded just 1.7% last year.\u00a0\u00a0And since the final months of 2009, when unemployment peaked, the economy has expanded at a pretty paltry 2.5% annual rate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Without a dramatic change in median household income, growth will remain slow and even the limited employment gains we currently celebrate\u00a0will likely prove impossible to sustain.\u00a0 Given the current political climate, it is hard to see how this expansion will be either long lasting or bring\u00a0meaningful improvements in majority living and working conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The news is filled with reports of positive\u00a0economic trends–supposedly we are making slow but steady progress\u00a0in recovering from the Great Recession.\u00a0\u00a0The Great Recession ended in June 2009, which means we have been in economic expansion for almost 3\u00a0years.\u00a0 So, how seriously should we take these reports?\u00a0\u00a0
\nOne indicator worth looking at is median household income.\u00a0 Unfortunately […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1853,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,36,12498,3920,76],"class_list":["post-45661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-economics","tag-economics-great-recession","tag-nation-united-states","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1853"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45661"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45682,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45661\/revisions\/45682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}