Opinion

Still crawling

TBO.com
Staff
Published: August 11, 2012

Since the real estate and housing market in Florida started to tank in late 2007, people have been waiting anxiously for signs of recovery from the state's economy. The lack to date of a robust recovery has had a number of negative impacts on Florida, including a stubbornly high jobless rate and anemic job creation. In addition, the state's public sector — especially city and county governments and school districts — has been forced to deal with major revenue reductions.

On Thursday, state economists offered what can only be considered gloomy news for anyone hoping for better times sooner rather than later. Their preliminary estimates suggest it could be as long as two more years before the state economy shifts out of low gear.

The economists say that over the next 18 months, the state's economy could grow from 4 percent to 5 percent. That may sound like good news, but given the snail's pace of growth over the last five years, Florida will have to do a lot better if it is going to make up some of the lost output.

To a major extent, the slow growth Florida is experiencing is causing similar problems for other states around the nation. Although by the usual measurements the Great Recession ended in 2009, the U.S. economy has been expanding at a pace much slower than usually seen after a major contraction.

We can only hope that the state economists are being overly cautious in their growth estimates. Two years is a long time.