In previous recessions, there has been widespread pessimism about the overall economy. But this recession was the first since the survey began in 1967 when more people expected their own incomes to fall.
Before this recession, no survey ever showed as few as 15 percent of Americans optimistic about their own prospects. But since October 2008, when the financial crisis intensified after the failure of Lehman Brothers, the figure has been below 15 percent. Similarly, the proportion of pessimists had never been as high as 15 percent before the financial crisis, but it has been above that figure for the last two years.
At the height of the financial crisis, in March 2009, less than 8 percent of Americans expected their incomes to improve, while about 24 percent anticipated a decline. The figures released this week showed about 10 percent were optimistic about their incomes, while about 16 percent still expected a fall.
The “recession” may be over, but the Depression continues. Economists have a very narrow (and nearly useless) definition of “recession”. Most of them define it as 2 consecutive quarters of a decline in GDP. So, if the decline is every other quarter for a decade…WHOOPEE, the “recession” is over.
To the rest of us (about 330 million) the hype about the “recession” being over is just annoying. Unemployment remains very high, under employment is even higher, real wages continue to stagnate or decline, retirement funds are all down, home values are still going down, foreclosures are still near record territory, storefronts are still being closed, banks are still failing, credit unions are failing and needing yet another handout from tax payers, the national debt is over $13 Trillion and growing by more than a Trillion dollars a year, fuel prices are high, food prices are high…but whoop-te-freakin’-do, the recession is over for the economists! Honestly, they seem so disconnected from reality that it makes one wonder if they are human.
Oh amen, #1. Recession over? Maine doesn’t think so. When the bill for our robbing the pension funds comes due, it will be disastrous. Larry
We just read the other day that something like 1 in 7 Americans lives in “official” poverty. Something like over 40million Americans are on food stamps. And there are some eye-popping tax increases coming soon that are not likely to stimulate consumption or free up capital for industrial expansion.
So, where is the good news? The 1919 panic was stopped with slashed taxes and federal spending, JFK cut taxes to stimulate the economy, Reagen cut taxes to wring out the stagflation of Jimmy Carter, and finally Bush cut marginal tax rates to try and rev up the economy after 9/11. To various degrees those things did work.
Conservatives are pushing for lower taxes and the elimination of whole Fed Gov departments that contribute nothing to economic or social vitality: Dept of Energy, Dept of Education as two worthy examples. Even NASA could be tossed on that pile if its mission is now “muslim outreach”.
Psychology is important also. Reagen created a pschology of “America is back” after Carter’s “our best times are behind us”. We need that “gung ho” spirit again.
#3 ” Reagen created a pschology of “America is back†after Carter’s “our best times are behind usâ€. We need that “gung ho†spirit again.”
ABSOLUTELY!!! What I hear coming from the regime is that this is the “new normal” and “get used to it” and “get over your anger”. I don’t hear anything about “our best days are still ahead of us”.
Gosh…with all the progressive “fixes”, you would think that we should now be at the dawning of a new and better time, wouldn’t you? Yet, the very folks that FORCED these new measures on us are the chief doomsayers!
S&T, they have had the House, Senate, and WH. There is nothing the Republicans could do to stop them. So with things in the toilet, how could they not logically accept responsibility for what we have, the “new normal”. Jerry Brown told Meg Whitman to “take responsibility”. Gee, Jerry, could you shout that a little louder in the direction of Washington??????
NYT: “The recession is over”
?!
The “Grey Lady” has been drinking the Kool-Aid again!