Comparing the Great Depression to Now - How Now is Worse

David Leonhardt has a good piece comparing the Great Depression to the current economic problems in terms of how the shadow of the Depression American industry was building the base for the economic growth in subsequent decades.  He notes that this does not seem to be happening now.  His basic point of how were have a cyclical downturn built on a structural growth downturn is a troubling idea.  The article also has this good graph of job creation looking back over sixty years.

Economic Growth and Life Expectancy

David Leonhardt in the New York Times has a great article about the nuances of economic growth - specifically the improvement of life expectancy and economic growth. He notes that while Africa is still far behind the rest of the world, it is getting better. The article also had this great graphic showing GDP per capita growth and improvements in life expectancy.

Time Span to Close the Unemployment Gap

The new unemployment numbers are in - and the overall picture has not changed much. Unemployment is still at 9.6% and underemployment is at 17%. While the economy added jobs, it did not do enough to close the gap between its current state and full employment. For that we need more growth, and more jobs. The hard part, beyond the current numbers, is how long it will take the economy to get back to full employment. The Brookings Institution has a good report on the effects of long-term unemployment, which contained this graph showing how long it would take the economy to return to full employment based on the number of jobs created every month. For reference, only 151,000 Jobs were created in October (its not even on the chart!).

Economic Recovery and Growth

The New York Times has a good graph (shown below) of how far the economy is below the baseline of potential GDP and how long it will take the economy to get back to potential GDP under different growth rates. Dismal science once again.