Given how badly the U.S. economy performed during the first three months of the year, few economists still believe that American output will climb more than three percent this year. Many forecasters are maintaining a forecast between two and three percent for twenty fifteen, which is essentially the pace of expansion that the U.S. economy has registered since the recession ended in mid-two thousand and nine.
As pointed out by writer Teresa Tritch, this pace of growth is enough to raise the incomes and wealth of those at the top of the economic ladder, but not enough to pull up wages and salaries for everybody else. People are right to be frustrated with the pace of expansion in recent years. Unemployment is still above pre-recession levels in Washington, D.C. and in thirty six states, including California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Maryland.
Recent college graduates continue to face resistance. The average unemployment for college graduates ages twenty one to twenty four was seven point two percent over the past year compared with five point five percent during the pre-recession year of two thousand and seven. The situation is even worse for recent college graduates, who still suffer an unemployment rate near twenty percent.
