Beyond GDP Growth

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Monika Bauerlein,
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The Economic Policy Institute has a short paper answering the question of why Americans might still be so dissatisfied with the state of the economy when GDP growth has been relatively strong for quite some time. Profits are up, but wages and incomes are down for the average worker; more and more people are sinking deeper into debt; the employment rate has fallen; poverty is rising; and health care costs are slowly getting out of control. Set in this context, of course, the figures for GDP growth really doesn’t matter much at all, although that seems to be the big number everyone always talks about.