An American Decade Lost to the Recession

What’s the Latest Development?

The US economy is now ten years behind where it might have been but for the global recession. Using seven economic indicators, a new report from the Economist details how many years the world has lost due to the global recession, country by country. In the US, S&P stock levels have recovered but over 13 years, some investors have made no capital gains. Due to the mortgage crisis, American households have lost a whopping $9.2 trillion. The current national unemployment level of 8.3% is the same as it was in 1983.

What’s the Big Idea?

The new report looks at three broad categories (household wealth, private consumption and unemployment) which are broken down further to measure asset and property prices, annual output and the change in real wages. “The average American homeowner is living in 2001, judging by inflation-adjusted property values,” says the report. Germany is the only G7 country who has not regressed. Relative to the rest of the world, the US outlook has gotten more encouraging lately. “But periods of unemployment scar workers even after economies have crawled back to health. For some, the time lost to the crisis will never be recovered.”

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