Why do economists say it’s bad when an economy doesn’t grow?

Question

I often see statements in the news from economists saying things like “only 0.2% growth reported, which might have bad effects on the economy”. In my eyes infinite growth is simply impossible when we have finite resources, or is that a misconception from my part?

Edit: thank you for all the detailed an in-depth answers! Learned a lot of new things 🙂

In: 96

Answer 1

The biggest reason we need economic growth is because of population growth. If the economy doesn’t grow with population growth, our more, living standards drop. The sad truth is, that won’t happen equally across the board either. So, if the population grows and economy doesn’t, lower class drops to poverty and the wealthy start investing more in businesses they expect to rebound and use tax-friendly savings options for the rest.