The economy is recovering, but it will take more than faster economic growth for American workers to recover from the Great Recession, argues Laura Tyson, a Berkeley professor and former chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton.

The economy has many factors in its favor this year, Tyson writes in an article for Project Syndicate.

The housing market is rebounding, real household net worth has recovered and state and local governments are improving. Increasing consumer spending again, record-high corporate profits and falling energy costs should all help boost the U.S. economy.

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But despite GDP growth, the labor market remains troubled, Tyson argues. Net monthly job growth in 2013 was about 193,000, a small improvement over 2012's 186,000 figure.

Returning to the pre-recession employment peak requires 7.7 million new jobs in addition to new jobs for new entrants to the labor force, yet the number of job seekers still exceeded the number of openings in every industry in November.

Although short-term unemployment has returned to pre-crisis levels, the long-term unemployment rate is still higher than it's been since 1948. Plus, the labor force participation rate (LFPR) — down from 66 percent in 2007 to 63 percent, the lowest since 1977 — has seen a "significant and sustained decline," she points out.

If the participation rate had stayed at its pre-recession high, the unemployment rate would now be almost 12 percent, Tyson notes.

Demographics are a factor, as older workers retire and more young people pursue education, she adds.

"But the recession triggered sudden and sustained declines in the LFPR across all age groups in response to weak demand and poor job prospects," she writes, saying the Congressional Budget Office attributes half of the drop to demographics.

"As has been painfully obvious during the last several years, prolonged labor-market slack means falling real wages for most workers, with the negative effect intensifying as one moves down the wage distribution."

Likewise, tighter labor markets will mean increasing incomes.

"Extending unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless, combating the stigma against hiring them, creating more on-the-job training opportunities and apprenticeships and raising the minimum wage are all essential steps toward a more equitable distribution of the recovery’s benefits."

A new study by the New York Federal Reserve predicts that wage growth may begin accelerating because short-term unemployment has returned to pre-recession levels. Although long-term joblessness remains high, short-term unemployment is a better predictor of wage growth, the study concludes.

"Currently, the total unemployment gap indicates a large amount of slack in the labor market, while the short-duration unemployment gap indicates little, if any slack," the study states.

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