Happy 8th Independence Day, economic expansion!

Happy 8th Independence Day, economic expansion!

In lieu of a more traditional Independence Day post, in view of the fact that the economic expansion turned 8 years old this week, I thought I would take a moment to highlight how far we have come.  Because as mediocre as some things are, we have come a long, long way since the dark days of June 30, 2009.
Unemployment has fallen from a high of 10.0 to 4.2%, and underemployment has fallen from 17.1% to 8.4%:


Over 16 million jobs have been added since the bottom in February 2010:

As of May, real median household income just made a  new high (h/t Doug Short):

Since this statistic is skewed by the increasing share of households headed by retirees, the odds are pretty good that working age real median household income is actually doing a little better.
In real terms, the amount of wages paid out to regular nonsupervisory workers has increased by about 22%:

Finallly, real GDP per capita has increased by 11%:

None of this is stellar. In particular, I wish that wage growth were more stout.
But when you compare where we were then with where we are now, there’s no contest. So Happy 4th of July, economy!

Posted by New Deal democrat at 8:00:00 AM