Quote of the day: On the economic recovery

Courtesy of today’s column by David Cay Johnston, a reminder that the economic recovery that has been trumpeted by the president may not be the kind of economic recovery we need:

News reports tend to focus on the short term — on yesterday, on last year compared with the year before. But look back farther in time and an overwhelming case can be made that the vast majority of Americans are worse off. Indeed, coming out of the Great Depression eight decades ago, the vast majority fared vastly better than most people have coming out of the Great Recession, which officially ended on June 30 six years ago.

It may be jarring to hear that the vast majority of Americans, the 90 percent, enjoyed bigger income gains in the 1930s than in recent years, but that is what the data show.

The data also indicate tandem increases in both want and wealth, with the vast majority worse off in 2013 than in 2009, while those at the apex of the economy are enjoying a much larger — and growing — share of national income.

Johnston goes on to point out that economic indicators like workforce participation and hourly wage-growth do not indicate improvement in the economy — if we are looking at the way the economy affects the bulk of Americans and not just those at the top and we are willing to look beyond the immediate year-over-year and month-over-month numbers on which the mainstream press tends to focus.

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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet