US Economic Recovery Is Smoking Europe's
The White House recently submitted its annual report on the economy to Congress.
One chart contained within shows how far the U.S. has come relative to other nations who went through the credit crisis.
It shows that on an indexed basis, GDP per working-age person has climbed further in the U.S. than anywhere in Europe (except maybe Germany). We saw it at Conversable Economist, aka Timothy Taylor.
Of course, this only shows developed, western (ish, if you count Ukraine) nations - no emerging economies are listed here.
But the main takeaway is that things could be a whole lot worse. Taylor:
International comparisons are always a bit tricky. After all, the U.S. has been less affected by the euro crisis than countries of the European Union. Nonetheless, the basic fact is that the U.S. economy is leading the way in this comparison group, which suggests that U.S. economic policy in the aftermath of the Great Recession did something right. To put it another way, critics of the U.S. fiscal and monetary policies in the aftermath of the Great Recession need to explain why, if the policies were so bad, the outcome has been comparatively so good.