Some context before hearing Achuthan's well thought out discussion comes from Shadow Stats, which shows that using the real CPI inflation deflator (inflation is subtracted from GDP to show real growth) instead of the government's CPLie index, the United States economy has been in a recession for almost a full decade running (blue line below).
This would help explain the continuous shift from high paying full time jobs to low paying part time jobs as stock prices are enjoying new highs every trading day.
h/t Shadow Stats, Zero Hedge, Bloomberg
