EconomicCrisis.US

Actually, the news from the AP’s survey of economists isn’t quite as pessimistic as JP Morgan’s long-term predictions earlier this month. The global financier’s projections showed a US growth rate for 2011 of just 1.5% and 1.3% in 2012, with unemployment increasing to 9.5%. AP’s survey predicts something closer to the mid-2s for the next two quarters and all of next year, with weak consumer spending being the main problem:

— The likelihood of a recession within the next 12 months is 26 percent. In June, the economists had put the likelihood at 15 percent.
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Moody’s Analytics on Monday lowered its outlook for growth in the U.S. economy this year and next, saying it sees “significantly weaker” prospects for the economy than just a month ago as the country struggles to avoid another recession.

The report issued by the sibling company of credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service cites the recent political wrangling over the U.S. debt ceiling and the revived debt crisis in Europe as leading factors in the bleaker economic picture.

“The odds of a renewed recession over the next 12 months, already one in three, will increase if stock prices continue to fall,” Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, says in the report. He said the economy must grow 2.5 percent to 3 percent a year to add jobs fast enough to keep the unemployment rate stable — something that won’t happen soon.
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Two years after the recession officially ended, employment growth has stalled, adding only 18,000 jobs to the economy last month.

Nonfarm payroll employment was “essentially unchanged” from May based on a nationwide payroll survey of employers. The unemployment rate inched up 0.1 points to 9.2 percent based on a separate survey of households. Since March, the unemployment rate has risen by 0.4 percentage point.

Job growth has slowed markedly over the past two months, rising an average of 22,000 for May and June, compared with an average of 215,000 jobs added per month from February through April of this year, according to the latest figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
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Americans are down on themselves this July Fourth. It’s easy to be gloomy over the high unemployment rate, sluggish economic growth, a massive debt overhang and political bickering. But are things really so bad? In many ways, the U.S. remains an above-average place to live. This shows up in a new quality-of-life report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The group measured 11 dimensions of “well being” in the U.S. and 33 other, mostly prosperous, nations. Here are highlights, based on international statistics from the past few years:
Money and jobs
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