How the virus could weigh down America's economy for the long haul

The pre-pandemic economy's biggest problem is only going to get worse

Scales.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

President Trump frequently called the pre-pandemic American economy the best in the country's history. And in some ways it was pretty impressive. The stock market was way up and unemployment way down — as the president's social media accounts constantly reminded us.

But all that good stuff only came after a long, so-so recovery from the Great Recession. In the decade before that devastating downturn — one many of us probably thought would be the worst we would ever experience — economic growth averaged 3.3 percent a year, adjusted for inflation. In the decade after the 2007-2009 recession, however, growth averaged 2.3 percent, a percentage point lower. And that slower pace was a big reason wage growth was steady but unspectacular.

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James Pethokoukis

James Pethokoukis is the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he runs the AEIdeas blog. He has also written for The New York Times, National Review, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, and other places.