LOS ANGELES-California and the nation can look forward to a generally slow and steady increase in GDP, but the improvement will be insufficient to drive a full recovery, according to the latest UCLA Anderson Forecast. In its second quarterly report of 2011, the forecast choes and reinforces the outlook it presented in March of this year, which called for slow growth through the end of the year as the state attempts to re-generate the 1.3 million jobs lost in the recession while also finding work from new entrants to the labor force.

UCLA Anderson Forecast director Edward Leamer predicts “normal growth” for the US economy through 2013, with “normal” defined as “3% GDP growth with payrolls growing at 150,000 to 200,000 per month and unemployment stuck at high levels.” But normal does not equate to a recovery, Leamer says. In his report, titled “No Recovery In Sight,” he differentiates between normal growth and the type of growth necessary for real recovery from the recent recession. In a recovery, the economy would grow at 5% to 6%, with payrolls growing at 250,000 to 300,000 per month and unemployment falling noticeably.

The differentiation is not a matter of semantics. Leamer notes that a recovery is not simply a matter of the economy returning to where it was when the recession began. Instead it requires a return to trend, meaning the economy would have to get to where it would have been had there been no recession, which requires more than 3% GDP growth.