The nation’s real gross domestic product in the first quarter of this year grew by a disappointing 0.2 percent annual rate, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Wednesday.
Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, attributed the economy’s underwhelming performance to “notably harsh winter weather” during the first three months of 2015.
Of course, the nation has experienced harsh winter weather in years past – including, notably, 1987 and 1969, when the Northeast endured three separate snowstorms.
But unlike the first quarter of this year, when the U.S. economy barely grew, the economy in the first quarter of 1987 expanded by 2.8 percent and by a robust 6.4 percent in 1969.
Some have gone so far as to wonder whether the negligible uptick in GDP during the first three months of 2015 “suggests a longstanding problem of under-reporting Q1 expansion,” as CNBC reported.
Well, maybe BEA’s seasonal adjustment of quarterly GDP is off by a tenth of a percentage point or two. That doesn’t change the fact that the economic recovery that began in 2009 is the weakest during the post-World War II era.
Indeed, last June, the five-year anniversary of the current recovery, Pew Research Center compared it with the first five years of other long postwar expansions.
The U.S. economy grew by 35.4 percent during the 1960s “go-go” years; 27.7 percent during the 1980s Reagan recovery; 16.7 percent during the 1990s tech boom; 15.8 percent during the new-millennium 2000s; and 10.8 percent during the Obama recovery.
And that doesn’t tell the entire story. Real per-capita growth in disposable income since the so-called Great Recession ended in 2009 is not even a third of what it was during the previous four economic expansions. And job creation during the Obama recovery is worse than during all but one postwar recovery.
That explains why, nearly six years into the current recovery, the majority of Americans still have a negative view of economic conditions, according to Gallup.
The hope here is that GDP will improve in the second quarter to the point that public perception of the economy brightens.
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