Economic Growth

Inside Economic Growth

EPI’s research on economic growth assesses how policymaking and economic institutions either help or hinder efforts to insure that the U.S. economy is operating at full employment and to generate sustainable growth in average living standards as rapidly as possible.

GDP rises 2% in third quarter

GDP rises 2% in third quarter

While better than the second quarter’s 1.3% bump, this is an inadequate rate of growth that fails to put downward pressure on the unemployment rate.

Graphs: Latest GDP data on State of Working America

On the Blog

May 20, 2013 | Nostalgic for the Gatsby era? (Surprise! You’re living in it.)
May 7, 2013 | Sequester cuts to Emergency Unemployment Insurance Compensation will likely cost around 30,000 jobs
May 2, 2013 | Winning the intellectual debate on austerity while losing the policy debate
May 1, 2013 | 175,000 jobs a month won’t make us whole until 2020
April 30, 2013 | Reinhart and Rogoff couldn’t justify austerity before it was debunked
April 30, 2013 | The missing workers: how many are there and who are they?
April 26, 2013 | How far from full recovery are we, Part II: Housing to the rescue?
April 18, 2013 | More on missing downward price pressure (hint, blame corporate profits)
April 15, 2013 | Tax Day 2013: For the vast major, it’s all about the expired payroll tax cut
March 28, 2013 | The sequester, the Ryan budget and practically all other spending cuts actually make the debt situation worse
March 22, 2013 | Aggressively targeting a full recovery is the least risky thing you can do: Back to Work Budget edition
March 21, 2013 | David Brooks is wrong on the CPC’s Back to Work budget
March 18, 2013 | House Democratic budget would also boost employment
March 12, 2013 | Ryan proposes another path to fewer jobs and slower growth
March 5, 2013 | A $10.10 minimum wage would give economy (and more low-wage workers) a bigger boost

Recent work on Economic Growth

At 2.5 percent, U.S. GDP’s growth rate signals that a robust recovery has yet to take hold
April 26, 2013 | By Josh Bivens | Economic Indicators
U.S. economy growing just above stall-speed
April 26, 2013 | By Josh Bivens | Quick Takes
A review of the economic research on the effects of raising ordinary income tax rates: Higher revenue, unchanged growth, and uncertain but potentially large reductions in the growth of inequality
April 2, 2013 | By Andrew Fieldhouse | Report
Economy built for profits not prosperity
March 28, 2013 | By Lawrence Mishel | Economic snapshot
Forget Spending Cuts, the U.S. Economy Really Needs a $2 Trillion Stimulus
March 7, 2013 | By Andrew Fieldhouse | Commentary
From free-fall to stagnation: Five years after the start of the Great Recession, extraordinary policy measures are still needed, but are not forthcoming
February 14, 2013 | By Josh Bivens, Andrew Fieldhouse, and Heidi Shierholz | Report
Economy’s contraction does not signal return to recession, but does signal that policymakers should target faster growth
January 30, 2013 | By Josh Bivens | Economic Indicators
Economy’s contraction does not signal return to recession, but more growth is clearly needed
January 30, 2013 | By Josh Bivens | Quick Takes
Inadequate GDP growth continues in the third quarter
October 26, 2012 | By Josh Bivens | Economic Indicators
Economy continues growing too slowly to reliably lower joblessness
October 26, 2012 | By Josh Bivens | Quick Takes
Who would promote job growth most in the near term?: Macroeconomic impacts of the Obama and Romney budget proposals
September 26, 2012 | By Josh Bivens and Andrew Fieldhouse | Report
Sluggish GDP growth continues in second quarter
July 27, 2012 | By Josh Bivens | Economic Indicators
A tale of two economies
April 26, 2012 | By Ethan Pollack | Economic snapshot
Subprime loan debacle intensified segregation
April 3, 2012 | By Richard Rothstein | Commentary
Macroeconomic effects of regulatory changes in economies with large output gaps: The ‘toxics rule’ as an example
March 2, 2012 | By Josh Bivens | Report
GDP growth disappointing in last quarter of 2011
January 27, 2012 | By Josh Bivens | Economic Indicators
Economy’s current growth rate will not reliably lower unemployment
January 27, 2012 | By Josh Bivens | Quick Takes
Best GDP growth in a year still not good enough
October 27, 2011 | By Josh Bivens | Economic Indicators
Putting America back to work: Policies for job creation and stronger economic growth
September 2, 2011 | By Josh Bivens, Lawrence Mishel, Ross Eisenbrey, and Andrew Fieldhouse | Report
Unemployment rate remains extremely high
August 17, 2011 | By Heidi Shierholz and Nicholas Finio | Economic snapshot
America, you are being told to tough it out
August 12, 2011 | By Lawrence Mishel | Commentary
It’s still the economy, Congress, not the concocted debt ceiling crisis
July 29, 2011 | By Andrew Fieldhouse | Commentary
Slow economic growth raising unemployment rate
July 29, 2011 | By Josh Bivens | Economic Indicators
Even worse than we thought: Anemic GDP growth explains increase in unemployment rate
July 29, 2011 | By Josh Bivens | Quick Takes
Ten facts about the recovery
July 6, 2011 | By Heidi Shierholz | Multimedia
Employment during the economic recovery
July 6, 2011 | By Arin Karimian | Economic snapshot
Historically deep job loss, but not an unusual recovery
July 6, 2011 | By Josh Bivens and Isaac Shapiro | Multimedia
More economic support is desperately needed
June 23, 2011 | By Andrew Fieldhouse and John Irons | Commentary
We Aren’t Going Broke
May 25, 2011 | By Lawrence Mishel | Economic snapshot
We’re not broke nor will we be
May 19, 2011 | By Lawrence Mishel | Report

View Economic Growth archive →

Advanced search

Putting America back to work: Policies for job creation and stronger economic growth
September 2, 2011 | By Josh Bivens, Lawrence Mishel, Ross Eisenbrey, and Andrew Fieldhouse | Report
Economic scarring: The long-term impacts of the recession
September 30, 2009 | By John Irons | Report
Government Debt and Economic Growth
July 26, 2010 | By Josh Bivens and John Irons | Report

Josh Bivens, Research and Policy Director

US economy grows by 2.5 percent in first quarter of 2013

The year started off strong in January and February with rising job creation numbers, but slowed sharply in March with only 88,000 jobs added.

Josh Bivens, research and policy director for the Economic Policy Institute, said the report shows that the economy “is growing just above stall-speed.” He said the pace of expansion of the economy is only enough to reduce unemployment slowly.

The Hill | April 30, 2013
The 1 Percent’s Solution

And the studies did not hold up under scrutiny. By late 2010, the International Monetary Fund had reworked Alesina-Ardagna with better data and reversed their findings, while many economists raised fundamental questions about Reinhart-Rogoff long before we knew about the famous Excel error. Meanwhile, real-world events — stagnation in Ireland, the original poster child for austerity, falling interest rates in the United States, which was supposed to be facing an imminent fiscal crisis — quickly made nonsense of austerian predictions.

The New York Times | April 26, 2013
Children of working poor caught in pinch of recession: Many sacrifice school for wages

Meanwhile, the numbers of working poor are on the rise, said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. Workers earning less than $11 an hour — the equivalent of about $23,000 a year for those working full time — rose to 28 percent of the nation’s workforce last year, up from 23 percent in 2006, he said.

“The impact on educational achievement is going to be one of the biggest scars left from the recession,” Mishel said. “From everything we know, high persistent unemployment will do more damage to the educational prospects of low-income students than all the positive outcomes from educational reforms that people talk about.”

The Boston Globe | December 20, 2012
Q3 GDP: U.S. economy picks up

“Growth rates this low will not reliably lower joblessness in the years to come,” said Josh Bivens, research and policy director for the Economic Policy Institute.

CNNMoney | November 1, 2012
Campaigns hope to receive boost from economic data ahead of election day

Josh Bivens, research and policy director a the Economic Policy Institute, called the 2 percent, “too slow to support solid job growth.”

The Hill | November 1, 2012