Today’s report that gross domestic product (GDP) rose at a 2.3 percent rate in the second quarter of 2015 is clearly an improvement over the 0.6 percent growth in the first quarter, but it indicates that growth for 2015 is likely to be disappointing. The extremely slow price growth in today’s data also clearly signals that there remains a substantial demand shortfall in the U.S. economy.

Slow GDP growth in recent years has been accompanied by decent employment gains only because of a rapid slowdown in productivity. As evidenced by this report, achieving a healthy economy that sees full employment accompanied by rapid productivity growth seems like it will take some time.