By Neil Irwin | The New York Times
The economy keeps underperforming. Yes, new G.D.P. data last week were better than expected. But the United States is still producing around $800 billion a year less in goods and services than it would if it the economy were at full health, and as a result millions of people aren’t working who would be if conditions were better.
But why? Where is this gap coming from? To get at an answer, we needed a more basic question: What would the economy look like right now if it were fully healthy, and how is the actual reality of the economy right now different from that?
