Either your a scientist or a believer.
If you’re an economist you’re required to look at facts as they are, without believing or hoping, and without applying any kind of attitude.
Optimism is an attitude or a belief, it’s not a scientific approach.

The US population is growing at a 0.7% annual rate, according to World bank data.
Therefore, a 1.5% annual growth rate in US GDP is just 0.8% in real terms.
It’s hardly better than no growth at all, and for the average and low income American it means stagnation or getting poorer, because most of this less-than-modest growth benefits the top percentiles without trickling down.

Recovery has been happening in Wall Street, not in America, for which there is stagnation at best.

Your article is closer to the truth than usual, but no cigar.

The US economy is NOT recovering, mainly for these reasons which I have excepted from an article the present bubble economy titled, “A Credit Theory and “Ro, Ro” Update” by Doug Noland, January 11, 2013

“Treasury and Fed monetary fuel has inflated financial asset prices across equities, bonds and fixed-income more generally. Furthermore, monetary inflation has inflated real assets, especially anything providing an income stream (i.e. farm land, rental homes, commercial real estate, etc.) more enticing than depressed cash and bond returns. Moreover, the atypically systemic inflation in securities prices has worked to broadly loosen financial conditions and boost perceived wealth throughout the economy, again limiting the degree of conspicuous inflation and associated excess in particular sectors.”

To read the whole article, here is the link.

http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php/cre ditbubblebulletinview?art_id=10748