Moving the U.S. Economy Out of First Gear

We are now nearly a year into what economists call a recovery, but it doesn’t look like one to U.S. workers. A close look at the data shows that while the U.S. economy is no longer in reverse, it is having a hard time getting out of first gear.

The U.S. economy continues to have a significant output gap: Capacity utilization is at 75 percent—meaning that a full quarter of our machines are sitting idle—while 1 in 10 workers sits at home. We need to find a way to connect the workers who want to work with the idle machines, be those desktops or assembly lines. What we need is a continued injection of demand—demand for goods and services that will put businesses into motion to start investing and hiring again.

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This article was originally published in The Washington Post.