Reports suggest that President Barack Obama will devote a significant part of tonight's State of the Union address to economic issues. We should welcome this and hope that the key takeaways for America will include: an explicit and realistic assessment of where the economy stands; identifying what needs to be done to enhance economic and financial outcomes; and assigning responsibility where it belongs.
The U.S. economy continues to heal steadily after the trauma of the global financial crisis that landed it in the economic equivalent of a hospital's intensive care unit. It is generating jobs, fiscal and external deficits are narrowing, inflation has been contained, and disruptive cases of extreme financial vulnerability (including housing and banks) have been addressed. The patient has been released.
Yet the economy exited the hospital with structural impairments. As such, it can walk but it cannot run.
The country's growth dynamics remain overly tentative, with the latest estimate for the final quarter of 2012 suggesting a mild contraction (though the revised numbers should be a lot better). Annual growth rates are mired in the 1.5-2 percent range, well below the economy's expansion potential. And this morning's small business survey confirms that a powerful driver of growth -- and one that is key to the wellbeing of the middle class (and politics) -- is stuck in first gear.
Yes, jobs are being created, but not enough to bring unemployment down from its current 7.9 percent to the historically more acceptable level of around 5 percent. Too many people are what's known as "long-term unemployed" -- 39 percent of those officially out of work, to be exact. And a growing number of Americans are depending on, and in some cases falling through, the country's overly stretched safety nets.
Simply put, as hard as it tries, the U.S. economy is yet to attain economic escape velocity. As long as it remains bound by this additional gravity, middle- and lower-income households will find it hard to prosper, income and wealth inequality will increase further, and the economy will continue to struggle with a combination of persistently sluggish growth, unusually high unemployment, and worrisome pockets of poverty and deprivation.
Four issues, and ones I hope the president will address this evening, would contribute to the U.S. economy reaching this escape velocity:
1. At the macro level, the economy needs to transition from "supported growth" (which requires ever-more experimental and untested Federal Reserve policies) to "endogenous growth" (powered by more sustainable and less distortive engines).
2. At the sector level, improving the functioning of the labor market, education, housing finance, credit intermediation, and infrastructure renewal.
3. At the micro level, engendering private sector confidence that would unlock the trillions of dollars in cash that -- rather than invested in new plants, equipment, and hiring -- continue to lie idle on balance sheets and in bank's excess reserves.
4. At the financial level, replacing the blunt spending cuts associated with the sequester with a more thoughtful approach; and, agreeing on a medium-term framework that puts an end to merry-go-round budgetary negotiations that unnecessarily add to uncertainty and further political polarization.
By speaking directly to these issues, Obama can constructively reset the economic narrative at the very start of his second term. And in doing so, he would also help citizens reconcile three emotions that run high in America today: excitement, hope, and anxiety.
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