US Government has been a significant drag on growth for more than a year now – NYT

Job Market Monitor

The chart here offers one of the better recent snapshots of the American economy that you will find.

The blue line shows the rate at which the government — federal, state and local — has been growing or shrinking. The red line shows the same for the private sector.

Quarterly change at seasonally adjusted annual rate.

Source: economix.blogs.nytimes.com

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, via Haver Analytics

The brief version of the story is that the government, which helped mitigate the recession, has been a significant drag on growth for more than a year now.

Source: nytimes.com

Read More @ The Role of Austerity – NYTimes.com.