A Tale of Two Recoveries
Fun fact: The US economy’s rebound from the COVID recession has been five times faster than its recovery after the Great Recession.
You read that right. And to explain why that is—and how workers have benefited—this week’s episode of How to Save a Country features two people who’ve had front-row seats in the Obama and Biden administrations.
Joelle Gamble is the current chief economist at the US Department of Labor; Heidi Shierholz (now the president of the Economic Policy Institute) was its chief economist between 2014 and 2017.
Together, they talk with hosts Felicia Wong and Michael Tomasky about how the shifts in economic policy thinking over the last decade helped produce today’s record-breaking recovery.
“The economy is not like the . . . weather . . . it really is a policy choice,” Shierholz says. “The difference in the speed of the recovery really, really underscores just how unbelievably important fiscal policy is, like Keynesian stimulus, to generating a strong recovery.”
Listen now, and follow for next Thursday’s How to Save a Country season finale—with special guest Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
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