‘Secular Stagnation’ is the expression, made popular by the economist Larry Summers,  to refer to the present time period, since the end of the Great Recession, with slow economic growth, high unemployment, stagnant middle-class wages and increasing inequality.  It is to be contrasted with ‘The Great Moderation,’ from 1982 – 2007, with a rapidly growing economy, rising wages and stable prices.
My last post, “Does ‘Middle Class Economics’ Really Work,” discusses President Obama’s attempt to appeal to middle-class families with policies such as:

• Tax and regulatory provisions such as tax credits for childcare, college tuition, and second earners in two parent households; also requiring paid sick leave and a higher minimum wage.
• Expanding access to community colleges to make workers more productive.
• Increased infrastructure spending to boost employment.

The problem with this strategy is that it is much too weak to combat the huge headwinds opposing it.  In addition to the well-known effects of globalization and technological advance, consider the demographical challenge described below:

OECD old age support ratio:  the number of workers aged 20-64 relative to those aged over 65
As is very clear from this chart, the demographics are just going to keep getting worse and worse and will be very bad indeed by 2050.
Here is a surprising quote from Mr. Summers: “To achieve growth of even 2 percent over the next decade, active support for demand will be necessary but not sufficient.  Structural reform is essential to increase the productivity of both workers and capital, and to increase growth in the number of people able and willing to work productively.  Infrastructure reform, policies to promote family-friendly work, support for exploitation of energy resources, and business tax reform become ever more important policy imperatives.”
I would add several additional policy changes which would speed up change in this direction:

• Reform (but not repeal!) the Affordable Care Act by eliminating all mandates. This would incentivize businesses to move part-time employees to full time. Tax credits and subsidies provide enough incentive for individuals to become insured.
• Regulatory reform to make it easier to start a new business.
• Raise the age limits for both Social Security and Medicare to encourage people to work longer.
• Reform disability insurance to make it more difficult to be declared disabled.
• Tighten up welfare requirements to require all able-bodied adult recipients without dependents to work.
• Reform immigration with guest-worker visas for needed foreign workers.

We need to get serious about boosting our labor participation rate in order to grow the economy faster.  Happy talk about ‘middle class economics’ will simply not do the trick!