Thanks a lot, austerity! We could have had 2014's economic recovery in 2011.

How we could have had 2014's economic recovery in 2011

(Image credit: A graduate student at Harvard University commencement, 2009. (BRIAN SNYDER/Reuters/Corbis))

Last year boasted the strongest job numbers since 1999, and as a result, many commentators have concluded that left-wing critics of austerity were wrong all along. The basic case — advanced by Jeff Sachs, Scott Sumner, and others — is that the surge in growth and jobs proves that austerity is not the poison its detractors claimed it would be.

These commentators make some good points. But they are wrong about austerity. A close examination of the counterfactuals shows that austerity almost certainly held back the recovery — and without it, we might have had 2014's strong numbers in 2011.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.