Economists’ Moral Duty On Jobs

By Jeff Madrick
June 8, 2011 - 5:24pm ET

The Federal Reserve's Ben Bernanke could not avoid admitting this week that the American economic recovery was faltering. GDP growth of less than 2 percent annualized in the fourth quarter was a severe disappointment. Responsible economists do not expect it to grow much faster for the rest of the year. The World Bank just forecast that it expects U.S. annual growth to remain below 3 percent through 2013.

Good thing President Obama's chief economist, Austan Goolsbee, is leaving town. His calm, conventional and well-schooled thinking apparently led to a devastating underestimation of how Americans are suffering in these times. Of course, we don't know quite how the conversation has gone in the White House. But the administration has been adopting the old Clinton strategy of admitting to no bad news if it can help it. It evinced no passion about the poor state of employment before the last election.