Justin Fox, Columnist

The U.S. Is the Sick Man of the Developed World

Americans' living standards aren't nearly as good as they like to think they are.

July 31, 2017 at 4:48 PM UTC

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business, economics and other topics involving charts. A former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, he is author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”

Left behind.
Photographer: John Moore/Getty Images

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What do the economists at the International Monetary Fund see when they look at the U.S.? An economy in the midst of a long expansion ("its third longest expansion since 1850"), with "persistently strong" job growth, "subdued" inflation and something close to "full employment." But also this:

The IMF then goes on to compare the U.S. with 23 other advanced economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in this chart: