U.S. recovery weakest of any in the world since 1970

U.S. recovery weakest of any in the world since 1970

James Pethokoukis

JPMorgan

The Obama administration says one reason the U.S. economic recovery has been so slow is that it is still suffering from the aftermath of the financial crisis. But the U.S. is not the first country to suffer a recession and a financial crisis. And the U.S. recovery is doing worse than all of them.

In a new research note, JPMorgan points out that since 1970, Japan, Finland and Sweden have all gone through what the U.S. is currently going through. And all three of them had recoveries stronger than America’s. The above chart compares the economic recovery — as measured by real GDP per capita — of each nation at different points after the trough of their recessions. And the U.S. is in dead last after 12 quarters from the bottom.

You should particularly note how the U.S. is doing versus Japan, another large, advanced economy. As JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli notes:

The poster child for slow growth coming out of a debt-fuelled financial crisis has to be Japan, which ever since the early 1990s has had trouble getting a head of steam. The recession which kicked off Japan’s “lost decade” lasted from 1991 to 1993. Including the recovery experience from that recession is sobering: we are currently faring worse than Japan at the same point in their lost decade.

So is the U.S. headed for a Lost Decade (or more) of weak growth, too?
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/07/u-s-recovery-weakest-of-any-in-the-world-since-1970/