US begins to feel expansion seven years after crisis

                

June 2009 was the end of an era: the most painful crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s had ended and began the healing process of the economy.

But the fact is that for many Americans, the last seven years have not been felt as a prosperity payback period.

This is beginning to change. The US recovery is being long by historical standards, as the expansion in the postwar period only lasted an average of about five years since 1945.

Even so, only now you can see wages starting to rise, increasing the purchasing power and improved consumer confidence.

"We are making progress, were seven years here," said the director of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell during a session of questions and answers on Tuesday night.

"If we can get a few more years of progress at this pace, where there is growth - slow growth, but with inflation of 2 percent and tight labor market - the feeling is much better than in 2012 and 2013 and I I want to continue like that. "

It is easier to get and maintain employment

The most notable economic improvement since the end of the recession came to the labor market. The unemployment rate fell by half and is now at 4.7 percent, compared with a high of 10 percent in 2009. About 268,000 people have filed for unemployment insurance last week, against 595,000 during the second week of June 2009. The creation of jobs has more than doubled.

The point is that the improvement of the labor market has not always felt: in some cases, people who have lost high-paying and skilled jobs themselves then work with lower salaries and incompatible with their qualifications. For people that have formed in the early years of recovery, yet difficult job market may have left permanent scars.

Participation is smaller, but basically because of demographics

A trend that took some gloss of the unemployment drop was the simultaneous fall in the labor participation. Although most of the decline is probably due to demographic changes, many economists believe that at least part of the decline was caused by the unemployed who have given up looking for jobs.

Wages begin to rise

Wages are another factor that has prevented economic growth to be really felt by many Americans. They stalled after recovery. But recently they began to rise.

This trend can be maintained when the economy achieve full employment and companies start to do more to attract employees.

The problem

One of the reasons why the average American could still feel that the economy is not working for it has less to do with the consequences of the recession and more to do with the long-term trend. Globalization has caused the stagnation of middle-class workers' wages in the world, while people of lower income - living mostly in developing countries like China and India - and very rich advanced.