That’s all for today – if you enjoyed this look into the what we economic wonks at the White House are thinking about, check out the CEA blog. – Jason

But as the recovery continues, we cannot forget the long-standing challenges that our economy has faced in recent decades. Chief among these is rising inequality—of income, of wealth, and of opportunity. While inequality is a global challenge, it remains especially important in the United States. Since the late 1980s, the share of income going to the top 1 percent in the United States has exceeded the 1 percent’s share in every other G-7 country in each year that data are available. It has also risen faster than in any of these advanced economies. In 2014, the top 1 percent received 18 percent of income, up from 8 percent in 1975.

While some inequality can result from competitive markets providing higher rewards to the most-productive workers, it is important to design our economic policies to promote inclusive growth that is shared with a wide range of households. In particular, a growing body of evidence suggests that much of the rise in inequality stems from cases where markets fail to be competitive. When barriers to competition such as monopolies or preferential government regulations prevent new entry into markets, incumbents can collect more income than their productivity justifies—capturing what economists call “economic rents.”

A wide range of economic policies can help address inequality by 1) promoting equal opportunity for all Americans through high-quality early education and supportive policies for low-income families; and 2) reducing economic rents through effective and thoughtful regulation as well as policies that increase worker voice.

For more information on the challenge of inequality and on the President’s agenda for inclusive growth, check out Chapter 1 of this year’s Economic Report of the President.

The economy’s progress since 2009 has been robust. The unemployment rate has fallen by half from its peak of 10 percent to 4.9 percent in the most recent data. In fact, the economy has beaten expectations in many important ways. As recently as 2014, leading economic forecasters predicted that the unemployment rate would not reach 5 percent until at least 2020.

U.S. GDP also reached its pre-crisis peak faster than other advanced economies, as shown in this chart from the 2016 Economic Report of the President.

Similarly, in 2015 U.S. consumer sentiment reached highs not seen in over a decade. When consumers and businesses are more confident, they spend and invest more, helping our economy grow.

We recovered so strongly from the 2008-2009 recession in large part due to the different choices we made. Unlike at the onset of the Great Depression, our policymakers took aggressive and rapid actions to boost aggregate demand to get our economy growing again, stabilize financial markets, and support workers who had lost their jobs. In total, the Recovery Act and a dozen subsequent measures provided $1.4 trillion in support for the economy. The dividends of this decision have been clear over the past seven years, as the economy has recovered much more rapidly than it did during the Great Depression and has also outpaced other countries that went through similar crises this time. 

The success of the recovery is clear in terms of both employment and economic output. We have just completed the best two years of job growth since the 1990s and seen the fastest two-year decline in the unemployment rate since the 1980s, all while extending the longest streak of monthly job creation on record. Meanwhile, private domestic final purchases—the sum of personal consumption and business investment, the most stable and persistent components of economic output—rose 2.7 percent over the past year, reflecting our strong domestic demand.

The shocks to the stock market and housing prices show a similar pattern – and were leading contributors to the decline in household net worth as families’ homes and investments lost value. But just like overall net worth, each indicator bounced back after the United States’ aggressive response to the crisis.

Last week marked the seventh anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—also known as the Recovery Act—signed into law less than a month after President Obama took office. Today, with unemployment below 5% and wages rising, it is easy to forget just how close our economy was to a second Great Depression in early 2009.

In fact, across a wide range of measures, the shock that precipitated the Great Recession was as bad as or worse than the Great Depression. But today, across the same range of measures, our economy is in a much stronger position. The thanks is due to American workers and businesses—but also to the tough choices made by policymakers during the crisis.

Today, we will look across the U.S. economy at the wide range of indicators that began the President’s term looking like a Depression—but turned into the robust recovery we are experiencing today. For example, in 2008 and 2009, declining asset prices wiped $13 trillion in wealth out of the U.S. economy, 19 percent of total wealth. That was about five times the drop in wealth at the onset of the Great Depression. But in 2016, the story is very different, with net worth more than 30 percent higher than its pre-crisis level.

Hi everyone, I am Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (or chief White House economic wonk). I am excited to take you on a brief—and chart-filled—tour of the U.S. economy seven years after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.