Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2011 Through 2021: “The United States faces daunting economic and budgetary challenges. The economy has struggled to recover from the recent recession, which was triggered by a large decline in house prices and a financial crisis—events unlike anything this country has seen since the Great Depression. During the recovery, the pace of growth in the nation’s output has been anemic compared with that during most other recoveries since World War II, and the unemployment rate has remained quite high.”