The US economy in 13 charts

1.     The US economy is back to pre-recession levels and growing. 

2.  The US has a long term advantage over other developed economies as it is one of the few with a positive working age population growth (India has an advantage here too):

3.  This is not a jobless recovery.  In fact, the US economy has added jobs at a faster clip in this recession than in the 2001 recession and the 1981 recession. 

There is an even more detailed analysis of this at Ezra Klein's Wonkblog here.

4.  US wages are rising for those employed.

5.  US disposable income is up.

6.  The reason it doesn't feel that great is the recession was one of the deepest in recent memory.

7.  The economic recovery has been different in different sectors with Construction, Information (IT), and Government having seen no recovery while most other sectors in growth.  Education, Health, Mining, Lodging, Leisure and Professional Services are back to pre recession levels.

8.   Employment change has hit different professions differently, suggesting businesses are shedding non essential staff and construction is in the doldrums.  Employment in line functions are in growth.

9.   The insistence on smaller government may be holding the economy back.   As you can see, private sector consumption is up, public sector is down.

10. Unemployment may be higher because of the insistence on smaller government.  In fact, the Hamilton Project notes that if the normal path of employment growth over the 2000s persisted, there would be 1.7 million more government jobs:

11. Educational attainment is a huge part of the problem with unemployment, suggesting potential structural issues.  For instance, the high unemployment rates are largely driven by people with no college education: 

12. 50% of the unemployed don't have any college education, 79% have less than a bachelors qualification.

13. This problem has been getting worse because, while good jobs for college or more have held steady, good jobs for high school or less than high school people have been dwindling.