The Long Recovery from the Great Recession: An Introduction

The first two decades of the twenty-first century have been marked by the Great Recession (GR), which was followed by the longest recovery in U.S. history, here termed the Long Recovery (LR). The LR lasted more than 10 years and ended with a pandemic bang in March 2020. This article introduces the eighteen articles that make up our review of the effects of the LR on the working class. What did more than a decade of economic expansion following the GR do for the working class and various groups of disadvantaged workers? We study this question through the lenses of economics, demography, sociology, and policy. The working class—lower-middle-income units, especially those whose adults have low education levels or other credentials—was hit hard by the GR. Did groups who are usually at a labor market disadvantage in fact make absolute and relative gains in incomes and living standards during the LR? Lessons from the LR will help to inform policy efforts to sustain the postpandemic economic expansion, which is still under way as of this writing.