Is This What a Unicorn Economic Recovery Looks Like?

We think the current economic picture just might be a “unicorn recovery.” Like the mythical beast, everybody talks about it, but nobody has seen it.

Hopeful signals filter through the media, but—in our slice of reality—we have yet to hear a client or prospective client say that they see evidence of a real economic turn around. We’re waiting.

Healthcare providers and marketing professionals throughout the nation, please speak up if you’ve got a different perspective (or an actual unicorn in your enchanted forest) We’d love to hear from you.

The nation’s economic news seems to cut in both directions. On the positive side, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 13,000 on February 28th. The index hadn’t been that high since May, 2008, a few months before the financial crisis and the beginning of the recession.

We’ll consider the Dow info as a ray of sunshine, although one market expert said at the time, “Thirteen thousand is not so very important technically as it is emotionally, simply because it is not 12,000.” But wait. Is that another way of saying, “wishful thinking?” [NY Times for Feb. 28, 2013]

On the not-so-positive side of the coin, the regular folks on Main Street America are a bit more direct with their feelings. Perhaps in no small part because 80 percent of them say they are no better off today than they were four years ago.

A CBS News/New York Times Poll revealed that (not surprisingly), “The economy and jobs remain the most important problems facing the country today—volunteered by 51 percent of Americans. Three in four Americans think the economy is at least somewhat bad—including 30 percent who say it is very bad.” [CBS Poll, March 12, 2012]

We don’t claim to have invented the term “Unicorn Recovery” (maybe we did), but we think it is a spot-on description. We’re in touch with medical practices, hospitals and healthcare providers in most states and in most professional disciplines. In our view, many medical professionals have yet to benefit from the much discussed, but little seen, economic recovery.

We’re fully prepared to be convinced otherwise, so please let us know if we’ve got it wrong. Please comment below; we’d like to publish your point of view. In the meantime, we look forward to hearing from every doctor, dentist and hospital administrator who wants to take advantage of the nation’s “better economy.”