The Economist Weighs in on the Lost Decade

We've long argued that the last ten years have been a Lost Decade for Everyday Americans. A number of publications have joined in as well. Now, The Economist weighs in, noting:

In terms of employment growth, the 2000s were also a lost decade. In the years between 1940 and 1999 the number of Americans employed outside farming grew by an average of 27% each decade. In the one just past it fell by 0.8%. In January this year, the number of people who had been jobless for more than six months reached 6.3m. And though the economy has grown for each of the past two quarters, the unemployment rate has only just begun to inch downwards. Though the recession is now supposedly at an end, the pain of the noughties’ miserable economic performance will be felt for a long time to come.

Obviously the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression mean that overall GDP growth for the decade looks very weak. It's worth noting that before the Great Recession, GDP growth for the decade was relatively strong, but job creation and incomes were just not keeping up with GDP or productivity growth the way we generally expect.