{"id":56051,"date":"2013-07-05T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-05T17:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=56051"},"modified":"2013-07-01T15:48:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-01T20:48:30","slug":"the-continuing-unsatisfactory-economic-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/07\/05\/the-continuing-unsatisfactory-economic-expansion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Continuing Unsatisfactory Economic Expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Media and policy-makers seem anxious to convince us that the economy is in strong recovery mode, therefore, no further significant policy interventions are needed.<\/p>\n

Their optimism appears to rest heavily on the recent acceleration in consumer spending. \u00a0After all, there are strong reasons for concern with the other major sources of growth: \u00a0government spending on all levels is being cut, exports face a weakening world economy, and business investment remains largely stagnate.<\/p>\n

But there are also strong reasons to challenge this optimistic view of consumer spending as a growth engine. \u00a0The charts below, from a\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em> article<\/a>, highlight some of the most important.<\/p>\n

As we see below, while consumption spending is indeed accelerating, after tax personal income is falling.\u00a0 In other words, there appears little reason to believe that there is a solid foundation for sustaining this trend.<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Additionally, after four years of recovery we still have 2.4 million fewer jobs than we had at the start of the recession. \u00a0Moreover, as we see below, there has been no real wage growth. \u00a0In fact, real average wages have fallen for most of the so-called expansionary period.<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, housing values are finally starting to rise and household debt payments as a share of after-tax income are declining. \u00a0But to a large extent the new burst in consumption spending has more to do with renewed borrowing than solid gains in job creation and income.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there is little reason for us to have confidence that the economy is gathering strength in ways that will be sustainable or benefit the great majority of working people.<\/p>\nMartin Hart-Landsberg is a professor of economics at Lewis and Clark College<\/a>. You can follow him at Reports from the Economic Front<\/a>.<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Reports from the Economic Front. Media and policy-makers seem anxious to convince us that the economy is in strong recovery mode, therefore, no further significant policy interventions are needed. Their optimism appears to rest heavily on the recent acceleration in consumer spending. \u00a0After all, there are strong reasons for concern with the other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1853,"featured_media":56057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,12498,3920],"class_list":["post-56051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-economics","tag-economics-great-recession","tag-nation-united-states"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/07\/12.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56051","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=56051"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56062,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56051\/revisions\/56062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}