The immediate peak-to-trough impact of the Great Recession (2007−2009) was certainly shallower than the Great Depression (1929−1933). But in the 1930s, while the economy plunged much faster, it also rebounded much faster. In the 2010s, by contrast, there was little rebound: Employment, productivity, and business dynamism (the rate at which the economy creates new firms and new jobs) never regained their earlier pace. As a result, the decade-over-decade slowdown in U.S. per-capita GDP growth was about the same before and after 2007 as it was before and after 1929.
