"....in the second quarter of 2011 the United States produced goods and services at a $15 trillion annual rate .... the economy was then capable of producing $16 trillion per year. This implies a loss of $250 billion income over just three months.
From October 2007 through June 2011, the difference between what Americans might have produced and what they actually produced has a total value of $3.21 trillion.
CBO projects that there is another $2.56 trillion in lost income yet to come over the next five years.
, we will have foregone income of $5.78 trillion over the course of the recession.
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Unfortunately, this is not the full story......potential output will be about 2 percent lower, on average, between 2017 and 2021 than it would have been without the financial crisis and the recession.
In fact, if we go back to CBO’s projections four years ago—just prior to the recession-- real potential output in 2017 was projected to be 4.7 percent higher that is projected today—a difference of eight Social Security shortfalls! That is, CBO’s ten-year estimate of potential output has fallen by $6.44 trillion since the onset of the recession. If only 40 percent of the fall in potential output is attributable to the recession, then the recession will cost more than $8.3 trillion in lost output through 2017. It is as if the entire U.S. economy took six months off."
