Is the Economy Slowing Down or Speeding Up? [POLL/AUDIO]

NEW JERSEY 101.5

A couple of weeks ago, right after the government shutdown and a disappointing jobs report was issued, many financial experts said the economic recovery appeared to be slowing down.

Now, just the opposite seems true.

"The gross domestic product report came in much better than expected, and corporate profits are up. We have an economy that is moving forward, but it is not moving forward in a very fast fashion, and it moves faster at times, it moves slower at times," said Rutgers economist James Hughes.

He pointed out the mixed signals we're getting about the economic recovery are not really that unusual, because there has never been a time when our economic stars are in full alignment.

"In most cases, we see varying indicators moving in different directions," Hughes said. "The difficult thing is to aggregate all these different measures together to try and get a true picture of what is happening."

Moving forward, Hughes said, the economic recovery will continue certainly for the balance of this year and into next year.

"We have had a bit of a slowdown in job growth in the second half of the year, but that pause may well be temporary," he explained.

He also said the slowness of this recovery and the tentative nature of the recovery is characteristic of what happens after a very deep financial crisis, and we just experienced the worse financial crisis since the Great Depression.