The Economy Never Got Its Groove Back

So says Mark Zandi

Even as job growth accelerated in 2005 and 2006 before slowing last year, it was not enough to return the country to its previous level. Some 62.8 percent of all Americans age 16 and older were employed at the end of last year, down from the peak of 64.6 percent in early 2000, according to the Labor Department. “The economy never got its groove back after the tech bubble burst,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com “We’re still feeling fallout from the collapse of the tech economy and the accounting scandals. There are still psychological scars for the managers affected. Managers are less interested in taking risks.”

It was nice touch by Peter S. Goodman to discuss the employment-population ratio. Hat tip to Paul Krugman who writes:

even during the best years of the “Bush boom,” the job market never got remotely as good as it was in the late 1990s. The official unemployment rate has been a deceptive indicator; the employment-population ratio has been a much better guide to how the economy feels.

Paul provides this link which shows the employment-population from 1993 to today.