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Bush’s recovery leaves ordinary Americans behind

The GDP is up. The GDP measures just about everything, so if money is spent destroying the environment and shipping jobs overseas, and if unemployed and discouraged workers spend lots of money on anti-depressant meds, for example, the GDP goes up.

America's economy, bolstered by brisk business spending, grew at a healthy 4.1 percent annual rate in the final quarter of 2003. That was even faster than first thought and offered new evidence that the nation's economic recovery was firmly rooted going into the new year.

The latest reading on the gross domestic product -- the broadest measure of the economy's health -- was slightly better than the 4 percent pace estimated a month ago for the October-to-December quarter, the Commerce Department reported Friday. GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States.
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Looking ahead, the economic picture seems promising, analysts say. Economic growth in the current January-to-March quarter is expected to clock in at a rate of around 4.5 percent or higher, according to some analysts' projections.

For out of work Americans, though, these are still frustrating times even as the economy is in recovery mode. Job growth has been painfully slow. The economy has lost 2.2 million jobs since President Bush took office in January 2001, a sore spot as he seeks re-election. Democratic presidential contenders have seized on this to make the argument that his economic policies are not working.

The GDP is one thing. I tend to put a little more stock into reports about actual people. When asked how comfortable they are with the current economy, ordinary Americans, the same folks whose family and neighbors are being laid off, the folks who are bearing the brunt of increasing health care costs, (like the California supermarket workers) do not sound as rosy as the millionaire Wall Street economists:

U.S. consumer sentiment fell sharply in February as Americans, concerned about sluggish jobs growth, turned cautious about the outlook for the U.S. economy, according to a survey released on Friday.

The University of Michigan's final reading of consumer sentiment this month fell to 94.4 from January's final reading of 103.8, which was its highest level in over three years, said market sources who saw the report.

The result, however, was slightly better than market expectations of a fall to 93.5, and slightly higher than February's preliminary figure of 93.1.

And the Friday survey just confirmed another survey released earlier this week:

Consumer confidence in February took its sharpest fall in a year amid dimmer job prospects, the Conference Board (news - web sites) said Tuesday.

Its gauge of confidence slid to a four-month low of 87.3 from 96.4 in January, falling twice as much as Wall Street had forecast.

The decline was the biggest since a 14-point slide in February 2003, when war in Iraq (news - web sites) was just around the corner and terrorism fears were heightened.