In fact, the economy has only grown at half that pace during the recovery; even slower over the past year.
And once you take that labor force decline into account, adjusted for the aging of the US population, the “real” unemployment rate is between 9% and 10% while the combined unemployment/underemployment number is 14.0%. As a recent report from the Century Foundation calculates it, almost the entire decline in the unemployment rate during this recovery was because of declining labor force participation rather than increased labor demand.
Yes, the Great Recession was worse than Team Obama knew back in 2009. And other bad stuffed happened later, like the euro crisis. (Not to mention some good stuff like the Bernanke Fed’s unprecedented monetary easing.) Through it all, however, the White House stayed optimistic, even knowing the history of post-financial crisis recoveries. And there is no sign yet that Obama is reevaluating the notion that higher taxes and more government investment is the path to American prosperity, or acknowledging that uncertainty about Obamacare might be slowing the creation of full-time jobs.
Now, maybe the smart guys on Wall Street are right, and finally the economy is ready to really accelerate. Deutsche Bank, for instance, sees the unemployment rate falling to 5.6% by the first quarter of 2016 (including a less active labor force). If so, you can thank a) the Fed and b) the natural resilience of the entrepreneurial US economy. A job market recovery? Obamanomics never did build that.
(Excerpt) Read more at aei-ideas.org ...
