• By   • Ben Casselman  Why has job growth been decent over the
past year, even as gross domestic product has remained weak?
Maybe because the economy is doing better than GDP suggests.
Employers have added a bit better than two million jobs over the
past year, or about 173,000 jobs per month. That’s hardly robust
growth, but it’s significantly better than would be expected
given that the economy as a whole — as measured by GDP — has
grown only 1.7% over the past year. That’s led some economists
to question whether there’s been a shift in longstanding
relationships between the labor market and the broader economy.
But Thursday’s GDP report offers an alternate explanation:
Perhaps GDP isn’t fully capturing recent economic growth. An
alternate, lesser-known measure of output, known as gross
domestic income, or GDI, shows the economy growing 2.2% over the
same period — still not great, but more in line with recent job
gains.  In a nutshell, gross domestic product measures
expenditures — consumer spending, busi