That 4.0 percent real economic growth just reported for the second quarter was better than the short-term consensus forecast, but – quite rightly – it hasn’t changed the consensus view of America’s economic condition.

That view was expressed by Justin Wolfers in the New York Times, who described “persistent growth, albeit at a disappointing rate,” and by Neil Irwin, also in the Times, who wrote that U.S. growth “would be just fine in normal times... but it’s disappointing given that the economy still appears to be functioning below its potential.” The excellent same-day analysis of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers noted that this trend has continued since the end of the recession in 2009, resulting in an average growth rate of 2.3 percent through the end of 2013.

This is indeed “slow growth” – but we must ask: in comparison to what? Well, of course… in comparison to the history of growth following past recessions. What this recovery has lacked – what earlier recoveries mostly enjoyed – was a time of high growth that worked to return total activity to, or near, its previous track. That is what conditions our feelings now. That is what causes us to experience this recovery as a “disappointment.”

Two reactions usually follow. One is that of the Washington Post, whose report on July 30 was ebullient: “The U.S. economy rebounded this spring, providing fresh evidence that the recovery is finally turning a corner.” At last – back to normal! The other comes from economists who insist that things could have been better, if only policies had been different—some think the government should have done more in 2009, some think it should have done less.

But is the baseline that we use for these judgments a reasonable one? Are we still in the world that existed from 1945 to 2007? Or have things changed in ways that make the record of those years much harder to repeat?

There are at least four broad reasons to fear that we now live in a rougher world—a world in which we can no longer expect the “normal” times we have grown so used to.

The first is energy costs. After 2000, energy costs were roughly twice what they were in the 1990s, although they have been coming down in the United States recently thanks to the natural gas boom. Perhaps that will continue – or perhaps not. Costs are one part of the energy effect; speculation and uncertainty are another.

Second, there is the world situation. In an article on July 25, the Nobel Laureate economist Michael Spence put it this way:

“[A]t this moment in history, the main threats to prosperity … are the huge uncontained negative spillover effects of regional tensions, conflict, and competing claims to spheres of influence. The most powerful impediment to growth and recovery is not this or that economic imbalance; it is a loss of confidence in the systems that made rising global interdependence possible.”

A claim of this sort can’t be quantified – but it worries Spence, and it worries me.

Third, there is the digital revolution – not entirely new, but spreading quickly these days as businesses face intense pressure to cut costs. Though economists are divided on the effects, businesses know that the new technologies save labor and also capital costs. As they do so, they reduce both jobs and measured economic growth. This is despite the fact that they also improve living standards—for those who remain employed. Technology is a two-edged blade.

Fourth, there is the financial system. Our expectations for growth are based partly on the view that banks can still deliver job-creating credit for businesses and households, as they did before the crisis, before the mortgage debacle, and before the NASDAQ bust back in 2000. But there is little reason to believe this, given the banks’ performance over the last decade or so, and their fecklessness leading up to the 2008 crash.

Taken together, these factors motivate a different question. Why have U.S. growth, and job creation and the unemployment rate been as good as they have been since 2009? Why is our performance, in particular, so much better than in parts of Europe? Given all these trend lines, it should be worse.

The natural gas boom is part of the answer. Cheaper resources stimulate business investment, both in the energy sector itself and in manufacturing that uses energy resources.

But here’s another part of the puzzle. U.S. labor force participation has been dropping, and very sharply (3.1 percentage points), since 2007. People not looking for work do not count as unemployed. Of course, that helps make our unemployment rate look good.

Where have those workers gone? According to President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, about half simply reached their early 60s and retired. Just as the jobs began to vanish, the Baby Boomers decided to step back. As the CEA points out, some of that would have happened even without the Great Recession.

But it would not have happened without Social Security and Medicare. Especially, it would not have happened without the option to retire early. Social Security and Medicare have enabled workers to become retirees – not on the terms many would have liked, to be sure, but on far better terms than would have been available otherwise. Along with Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps, deposit insurance and the earned-income tax credit, these systems have cushioned incomes, and so preserved purchasing power, even as jobs and production declined. In so doing, they helped to preserve total demand – and other people’s jobs, which depend on that spending. That is exactly what did not happen in, say, Greece.

This is no small thing. It is a gift to the 21st century, from the New Deal and the Great Society. To have preserved Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the rest of the safety net – against all their detractors and despite serious cuts in some programs – is a simple, but massive achievement.w

There are some who still claim that we cannot afford our social insurance programs. But the truth is: In the hard times that characterize the "new normal," these are programs we cannot afford to lose.