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Ms. Lew is Senior Counselor to the White House National Economic Council and the SBA Administrator and she co-chairs the White House Interagency Group on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She provides economic policy advice on a broad range of matters that impact small businesses.
Many private-sector forecasters are expecting GDP growth to hit a bit of an air pocket in the first quarter of 2011 before growing at a pace above 3 percent for the remainder of the year. But the temporary deceleration in GDP Blue Chip forecasters are expecting coincides with an increase in private payrolls of 564,000 from December to March, the fastest pace of growth so far in this recovery. How can economic growth slow when employment is picking up? Well, this result is not unusual it turns out. As shown in the figure below, the relationship between private-sector job growth and GDP growth on a quarterly basis has been surprisingly weak over the course of the first two years of the past three economic recoveries (and “surprisingly weak” is an understatement as the correlation between the two series is almost 0). In late 2009 and early 2010, during the current recovery, we saw a combination of good GDP growth but weak employment growth, and wondered, where are the jobs?”
> Read moreThe White House recently recognized innovators from around the country who are helping create the future of American-made clean energy and communities who have embraced innovative clean energy as an economic driver.
Investing in American innovation and ingenuity is crucial to winning the jobs and industries of the future. These innovators are already taking big steps to help create a secure energy future and reach the President's goal of reducing the amount of imported oil by one-third in the coming years while creating jobs and growing the economy.
> Read moreOne year after the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill, EDA invested almost $4 million to support recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast. Investments include: