Commercial Printing Outlook : Bootstrap Time for Printers

"One wild card is the issue of the global economy and how it could impact things," Davis says. "The good news—energy development is a positive for the U.S. economy, and that's certainly pushing the numbers up."

While Davis cautions that the United States is in what he calls a mature economic recovery, he believes the stabilized recovery should help yield about 1 percent growth for the printing industry, adding $1.5 billion in terms of nominal printing sales. The printing industry is like the car at the very end of a long traffic jam; although the economy has been plodding along slowly for the past few years, movement for the printing industry comes much later.