What's going on with the US economy

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“The failure of the economy over the past 15 years to deliver real improvements in the lives of middle- and working-class Americans remains a major source of public discontent,” said William Golston, an expert at the Brookings Institution think tank.

Although the country's economy may have recovered from the recession — production is rising, and unemployment has fallen from 10% in 2009 to 5% in 2015, Americans still lack money. Family incomes, on average, did not increase during 15 years. In 2014, the average household income reached 53 657 dollars per year, according to the US Census Bureau. With inflation, this figure reached 57 357 dollars in 2007 and 57 843 in 1999.

Many also have the feeling that the new jobs created are not so highly paid, and that opportunities for promotion or improvement in the standard of living for many are declining.

Perhaps economic growth is also slowing down due to psychological factors: consumers are not buying goods, but saving money for a rainy day. “In the late 90s, they felt more confident, and therefore cheap oil stimulated the economy more,” пишет Neil Irwin, author of the New York Times.

“The Federal Reserve System (Fed) is in a radically different position than it was in the 90s,” the author writes. According to him, the Fed’s task is to absorb the shock impact on the US economy so that growth is maintained with low inflation.

In the 1998, the Fed was better able and more willing to fulfill this role than it is now, Irwin believes. Now, interest rates are 0,25-0,5%: that is, by cutting the rate, the Fed will find itself in an unknown world of negative interest rates, when depositors pay the bank, and not vice versa.

“Attempts to find the reasons for the current situation can very quickly turn into a search for culprits in the American political system. The left blames billionaires, banks and Wall Street. The right blames immigrants, other countries and the international economic system. But these are opposite sides of the same political coin,” Golston was quoted as saying. Air force.

Politicians are unable or unwilling to take action. And the relatively weak damage to the economy is pushing the US toward a recession.

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