A chart that looks essentially flat over a single year can still be part of a genuinely accelerating longer-term trend, particularly when the underlying process compounds gradually rather than jumping in visible, dramatic steps that would show up clearly within any single twelve-month window. That steady accumulation is easy to miss while it is actually happening.
This is a common and often misleading feature of gradual improvement: early compounding growth genuinely does look flat for a stretch of years, then appears to suddenly accelerate later, even though the same steady underlying rate has actually been operating quietly throughout the entire period in question.
Recognising this pattern requires resisting the temptation to judge a slow-moving process purely by its most recent, seemingly uneventful year, and instead examining a longer stretch of data before concluding that a process has stalled rather than simply being in one of its quieter, less visible early stages.