Considering the country’s weak economic growth of just 0.1 percent last quarter, it is worth reflecting on the recovery effort that President Obama and his supporters tout as a success. Mostly, the defenders of the president’s economic policies note that main economic indicators—specifically GDP, unemployment, and the stock market—have recovered a good deal since the recession hit rock bottom in 2009.
This is true—our economy is better off today than it was during the severe recession. But that is a low standard to meet; as an economy recovers from the end of a recession—especially a deep recession—economic indicators such as GDP and unemployment invariably improve. What really matters is the strength of the recovery and how fast that recovery propels economic growth.
When compared with those in the past, the Obama recovery has been the slowest and weakest since the Great Depression. As The Wall Street Journal notes, the average quarterly GDP growth for all post-1960 recoveries was 4.1 percent, with total growth of 21.1 percent. Compare that to the anemic Obama recovery, which posted an average of 2.2 percent quarterly growth and a total of just 11.1 percent—about half the historic average.
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