The government recently released data that says a slow growth 1.4% was realized in the last quarter of 2015 while payrolls expanded 1.5 million jobs over the last 6 months. On top of this was a sluggish GDP expansion of .5% and increasing wages of 2.3%. Investments appear to be slowing down and consumers are holding back on spending.
This creates a problem of pessimism influencing the economic engines while at the same time wages increasingly rise against the investment trajectory. If the trend of low growth and slack investment continues wages will also begin to slow down. Considering that 2/3rds of the economy is driven off of consumer spending there will also be a greater impact on income in the future.
Unless big investors and consumers become more optimistic about the economy there will be a continual slowing of national growth. The economy is a much more global world and the U.S. was projected to be one of the fastest growing out of the industrialized nations but this has now changed. Even though the global risks have reduced the U.S. is not isolated from the slower growth in other countries.
The economy is impact more by global factors than it was in the past. Wages don't exist in a national vacuum and are impacted by international investment trends. It is likely that consumer spending will increase as wages increase disposable income but the long term impact is likely to be muted. The second quarter might be more reflective of what will actually happen over the year as quirks make their way out of the data.
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