Economic Research: How Increasing Income Inequality Is Dampening U.S. Economic Growth, And Possible Ways To Change The Tide
Chart 7
Who Was Hurt? Household Wealth By Income Group
(Net wealth, $0003) 1,400
1,200 1,000 3800
600
20-39.9 40-59.9 60-79.9 60-39.9 90-100 {Income percentile)
Source: Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, 2010.
© Standard & Poors 2014.
Indeed, economist Robert E. Hall, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, laments that "the years since 2007 have been a macroeconomic disaster for the United States of an unprecedented magnitude since the Great Depression," noting that U.S. economic output in 2013 was 13% below what the precrisis trend has predicted (46). He is skeptical that a sudden surge in output will help the economy recover the ground it lost. Rather, a possible scenario would be a gradual return to a precrisis growth rate, which leaves the U.S. permanently below the level of output that
precrisis trends had suggested.
Indeed, while Standard & Poor's is expecting the annual real growth rate to climb above the 3% mark in 2015. That will be the first time since 2005 and comes after another year of subpar growth of just 2.0% expected for 2014. The US. already has averaged a mere 1.4% over the last 10 years, through 2013. After expecting to see that long-awaited burst of growth in 2014 of 3% at the beginning of the year, we have reduced our expectations for GDP growth back to that 2% mark once again. We now expect the 10-year average annual growth to be about 2.5% though 2024. To put that in perspective, five years ago, we forecasted the 10-year average annual growth rate to be 2.8%, with all yearly
rates much higher than the 2% mark.
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