Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics?
So, this doesn't look so bad (Assuming 'Real GDP' means 'real dollars'). if you just look at the chart you might guess that over the time period shown it comes to just slightly negative in terms of the change in GDP in real dollars.
But if you actually multiply it out:
(* 0.993 1.006 0.96 0.932 0.951 0.993 1.016 1.05 1.037 1.024) ->
95.6%
So what looks not so bad is actually, because of the effects of compounding, a pretty serious drop in GDP of about 4.5%.
But that's not the only problem. GDP is not normalized. We're not measuring GDP per capita here, only GDP. The population of the US has increased by about 2% over the period of the chart, so in terms of the goods and services we are producing per person the US is in even worse shape.
Do you feel 6.5% less productive than you did on January 1st, 2008 ?