July 01, 2010
That’s what readers could infer from the NYT’s description of the 2.9 percent projected growth for Japan as “anemic.” Japan’s population is decreasing at the rate of 0.2 percent annually. Therefore this growth rate translates into a projected per capita growth rate of 3.1 percent.
By contrast, most forecasts put U.S. GDP growth in the range of 2.0-3.0 percent. Since the population in the United States is growing at a rate of 0.9 percent annually, this translates into a per capita GDP growth rate of 1.1 to 2.1 percent. In other words, the United States is expected to have a per capita growth rate that is least a percentage point slower than the Japanese rate that was considered “anemic.”
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