2017 Economic Report of the President

"As the 2017 Economic Report of the President goes to press, the United States is eight years removed from the onset of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Over the two terms of the Obama Administration, the U.S. economy has made a remarkable recovery from the Great Recession. After peaking at 10.0 percent in October 2009, the unemployment rate has been cut by more than half to 4.6 percent as of November 2016, below its pre-recession average. Real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita recovered fully to its pre-crisis peak in the fourth quarter of 2013, faster than what would have been expected after such a severe financial crisis based on historical precedents. As of the third quarter of 2016, the U.S. economy was 11.5 percent larger than at its peak before the crisis. As of November 2016, the economy has added 14.8 million jobs over 74 months, the longest streak of total job growth on record. Since private-sector job growth turned positive in March 2010, U.S. businesses have added 15.6 million jobs. Real wage growth has been faster in the current business cycle than in any since the early 1970s. Meanwhile, from 2014 to 2015, median real household income grew by 5.2 percent, the fastest annual growth on record, and the United States saw its largest one-year drop in the poverty rate since the 1960s..."

Economic Report of the President

Economic Report of the President: 2013

Find the latest edition of the Economic Report of the President: 2013, an annual report on the economic and financial condition of the nation.
Economic Report of the President: 2013

America's Economy App

A mobile app for use on the U.S. Census Bureau's web site highlighting economic data.

Economic Report of the President, 2012

"The Economic Report of the President is an annual report written by the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. It overviews the nation's economic progress using text and extensive data appendices.."

Confronting the Nation’s Fiscal Policy Challenge
Statement of Statement of Douglas W. Elmendorf, Director Congressional Budget Office before the
Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, U.S. Congress, September 13, 2011.

Regional and State Unemployment -2010 Annual Averages
Annual unemployment data for regions and states.

Economic Report of the President, 2011
"The Economic Report of the President is an annual report written by the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. It overviews the nation's economic progress using text and extensive data appendices. The Economic Report of the President is transmitted to Congress no later than ten days after the submission of the Budget of the United States Government. Supplementary reports can be issued to the Congress which contain additional and/or revised recommendations. Documents are available in ASCII text and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), with many of the tables also available for separate viewing and downloading as spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel (XLS)..."

EEOC Explores Plight Of Older Workers In Current Economic Climate
"At a meeting held today, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission heard testimony that age discrimination is causing the nation’s older workers to have a difficult time maintaining and finding new employment, a problem exacerbated by the downturn in the economy. The number and percentage of age discrimination charges filed with the EEOC have grown, rising from 16,548 charges — 21.8 percent of all charges — filed in fiscal year 2006, to 22,778 —24.4 percent — in fiscal year 2009.

The Commission heard testimony from a number of experts on the impact of the economic crisis on older workers, the legal issues surrounding age discrimination today, and best practices to retain older workers. Dr. William Spriggs, Assistant Secretary for Policy, U.S. Department of Labor, testified that the rate of unemployment for people age 55 and over “rose from a pre-recession low of 3.0 percent (November 2007) to reach 7.3 percent in August, 2010, making the past 22 months the longest spell of high unemployment workers in this age group have experienced in 60 years.” Older workers also spend far more time searching for work and are jobless for far longer periods of time compared to workers under 55.

Assistant Secretary Spriggs’ testimony reflected the experience of Jessie Williams, who had worked for 31 years in Las Vegas at Republic Services, a multi-million dollar waste disposal company. After more than three decades of stellar employment, he was terminated along with four other foremen over 40. He testified, “I was told that I wasn’t needed any longer . . . [and] that they were going to ‘get rid of the old foremen and get some new blood.’” Following his discharge, Mr. Williams had to move out of state to find employment. He later became part of the EEOC’s suit against Republic filed on behalf of more than 20 workers discharged due to their age. The case was ultimately settled for nearly $3 million..."

Vice President Biden Releases Report on Recovery Act Impact on Innovation
"Vice President Joe Biden today unveiled a new report, “The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy through Innovation,” which finds that the Recovery Act’s $100 billion investment in innovation is not only transforming the economy and creating new jobs, but helping accelerate significant advances in science and technology that cut costs for consumers, save lives and help keep America competitive in the 21st century economy. The report can be viewed in full HERE.

“From the beginning, we have been a nation of discovery and innovation – and today we continue in that tradition as Recovery Act investments pave the way for game-changing breakthroughs in transportation, energy and medical research,” said Vice President Biden. “We’re planting the seeds of innovation, but private companies and the nation’s top researchers are helping them grow, launching entire new industries, transforming our economy and creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the process.”

According to this new analysis, the U.S. is now on-track to achieve four major innovation breakthroughs thanks to Recovery Act investments:

Cutting the cost of solar power in half by 2015, putting it on par with the cost of retail electricity from the grid.
Cutting the cost of batteries for electric vehicles by 70 percent between 2009 and 2015, putting the lifetime cost of an electric vehicle on-par with that of its non-electric counterpart.
Doubling U.S. renewable energy generation capacity and U.S. renewable manufacturing capacity by 2012, a breakthrough that would not be possible without the Recovery Act.
Bringing the cost of a personal human genome map to under $1,000 in five years, allowing researchers to sequence 50 human genomes for the same cost as sequencing just one today..."

Is the U.S. Current Account Deficit Sustainable?
"America’s current account (CA) deficit (the trade deficit plus net income payments and net unilateral transfers) rose as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) from 1991 to a record high of about 6% of GDP in 2006. It began falling in 2007, and reached 3% of GDP in 2009. The CA deficit is financed by foreign capital inflows. Many observers have questioned whether such large inflows are sustainable. Even at 3% of GDP, the deficit is probably still too large to be permanently sustained, and many economists fear that the decline is temporary and caused by the recession. Further, a large share of the capital inflows have come from foreign central banks in recent years, and some are concerned about the economic and political implications of this
reliance. Some fear that a rapid decline in capital inflows would trigger a sharp drop in the value of the dollar and an increase in interest rates that could lower asset values and disrupt economic activity. However, economic theory and empirical evidence suggest that the most plausible scenario is a slow decline in the CA deficit, which would not greatly disrupt economic activity because production in the traded goods sector would be stimulated..."

Policies for Increasing Economic Growth and Employment in the Short Term
Testimony. Statement of Douglas W. Elmendorf, Director Congressional Budget Office, prepared for the Joint Economic Committee, February 23, 2010.

Statement of Douglas W. Elmendorf Director Policies for Increasing Economic Growth and Employment in the Short Term
"The United States has just suffered through the most severe recession since the 1930s.
The economy’s output is currently about 6 percent below CBO’s estimate of potential
gross domestic product (GDP)—the output the economy would produce if its resources were fully employed. At 9.7 percent, the unemployment rate is about twice what it was in December 2007. Since that time, employers shed about 8.4 million jobs. Moreover, if employment had grown during that period at the same rate at which it grew from 1990 to 2007, millions of additional jobs would have been added to the economy. All told, the recession has lowered employment by about 11 million
jobs relative to what it would otherwise be.

The good news is that the economy appears to be starting to recover. Real (inflationadjusted)
GDP grew during the second half of 2009, after having fallen 3.7 percent since the recession began in the fourth quarter of 2007. Severe economic downturns often sow the seeds of robust recoveries. During a slump in economic activity, consumers defer purchases, especially for housing and durable goods, and businesses postpone capital spending and try to cut inventories. Once demand in the economy picks up, the disparity between the desired and actual stocks of capital assets and consumer durable goods widens quickly, and spending by consumers and businesses can accelerate
rapidly. Although CBO expects that the current recovery will be spurred by that dynamic, in all likelihood the recovery will also be dampened by a number of factors. Those factors include the continuing fragility of some financial markets and institutions; declining support from fiscal and monetary policy; and limited increases in households’ spending because of slow income growth, lost wealth, and a large number of vacant houses..."

Joint Economic Committee Releases New State-by-State Report
" A new report released today by the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) provides a snapshot of the current economic climate in each state, offering policy makers easy access to the major economic indicators in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in the areas of jobs, unemployment, personal earnings and housing.

“Understanding the Economy: State-by-State Snapshots” offers a gauge of the economic landscape of each state, allowing for quick comparisons with other states and to the overall U.S. economy.

“We believe the state reports are a useful resource for Members of Congress and other policy makers as well as interested individuals who want access to fresh, reliable, state-specific data without having to dig around for it,” said Chair of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. “These state pages offer a guide to the state of local economies across the country, helping us to better understand the specific impacts of the Great Recession and also to see where growth and recovery have begun to take hold.".."

The Economic Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, First Quarterly Report
"As part of the unprecedented accountability and transparency provisions included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the Council of Economic Advisers was charged with providing to Congress quarterly reports on the effects of the Recovery Act on overall economic activity, and on employment in particular. In this first report, we provide an assessment of the effects of the Act in its first six months.

Evaluating the impact of countercyclical macroeconomic policy is inherently difficult because we do not observe what would have happened to the economy in the absence of policy. And the sooner the evaluation is done after passage, the less data one has about key economic indicators. Any estimates of the impact of the ARRA at this early stage must therefore be regarded as preliminary and understood to be subject to considerable uncertainty. In this regard, it is important to note that there has not yet been any direct reporting by recipients of ARRA funds on job retention and creation. Such direct reporting data will be evaluated and incorporated in future reports.

Because of the inherent difficulties in the analysis, we approach the task of estimating the impact of the Recovery Act from a number of different directions. Our multi-faceted analysis suggests that the ARRA has had a substantial positive impact on the growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) and on employment in the second and third quarters of 2009. That various approaches yield similar estimates increases the confidence one can have in the results..."

Will the Demand for Assets Fall When the Baby Boomers Retire?
"The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) produces regular reports on the state of the
U.S. economy as well as 10-year and long-term projections of the nation’s budget
and economic outlook. In its analyses, CBO examines a range of developments that could have short- or longer-term consequences for the economy. In the decade to
come, one such important development will be the retirement of a substantial proportion of the baby-boom generation—the segment of the nation’s population
born between 1946 and 1964, whose oldest members turned 62 in 2008.

Although the shift in demographics caused by that group’s retirement from the
workforce might affect the U.S. economy in many ways, this background paper
focuses on what could happen in just one area: the demand for assets, particularly
financial assets, such as stocks and bonds. Some economists have warned of the
possibility of a dramatic decline in demand as baby boomers sell off their assets
to finance consumption in retirement; they assert that the sell-off could cause a dramatic decline in prices. An evaluation of the evidence, however, indicates that such a dramatic decline in asset demand and prices is unlikely."

Economic Downturns and Crime
"The United States is currently in the midst of a recession that some analysts believe will be the longest-lasting economic downturn since the Great Depression. Various indicators of economic health, such as the unemployment rate and foreclosures, have reached their worst showings in decades over the past few months. The troubled state of the economy has revived the longstanding debate concerning whether economic factors can be linked to increases in the nation’s crime rates. This report examines the available research on how selected economic variables may or may not be related to crime rates..."

Economic Slowdown Widespread Among States in 2008
"New statistics released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis show that economic growth slowed in most states and regions of the U.S. in 2008 as economic growth overall slowed. Real GDP growth slowed in 38 states, with downturns in construction, manufacturing, and finance and insurance restraining growth in many states.1 Growth in real U.S. GDP by state slowed from 2.0 percent in 2007 to 0.7 percent in 2008."

Getting Through Tough Economic Times
"This guide provides practical advice on how to deal with the effects financial difficulties can have on your physical and mental health -- it covers:

* Possible health risks
* Warning signs
* Managing stress
* Getting help
* Suicide warning signs
* Other steps you can take"

Recession in Perspective
An analysis from the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis comparing the current recession with historical recessions dating back to 1946.

The State of the Economy and Issues in Developing an Effective Policy Response
Statement of Douglas E. Elmendorf, Direcotor of the Congressional Budget Office before the Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives, January 27, 2009.in