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

It’s only *really* bad assuming you have population growth.

Larger population but same amount of stuff = less stuff per person.

Most countries have growing populations so not having economic growth is generally bad.

If your population halved but your economy only decreased by 25% then everybody is actually better off.