How We’re Doing in the World

Judged by most standards, America and the world are better off today than they were a year ago when President Obama entered office. While few Americans will forget the fear of global economic meltdown that accompanied the 44th president’s inauguration and the drastic stimulus and triage measures that had to be taken to arrest the economic freefall, public optimism, as measured by a variety of opinion poll measures, has recovered.

But many workers, especially those in the once-thriving Sun Belt, are still suffering severe unemployment. In some ways, we’ve faced a marked decline since 2006, when world GDP growth was at nearly 4 percent and world trade growth was more than 20 percentage points higher than in 2009. In this third “How We’re Doing” Index, a team of Brookings experts take a four-year look at key local, domestic and global indicators to gauge the shifting position of the United States and the larger international system. Continue reading below chart »

Related Materials:
» Videos of Martin Indyk and Carol Graham discussing the new index »
» Index #1: A Composite Index of Global and National Trends »
» Index #2: What’s Blocking the Recovery? »