The United States entered a recession in 1990, which lasted 8 months through March 1991. [1] Although the recession was mild relative to other post-war recessions, [2] it was characterized by a sluggish employment recovery, most commonly referred to as a jobless recovery. Unemployment continued to rise through June 1992, even though a positive economic growth rate had returned the previous year. [3] [4]
Belated recovery from the 1990–1991 recession contributed to Bill Clinton's victory in the 1992 presidential election over incumbent President George H. W. Bush.
Throughout 1989 and 1990, the economy was weakening as a result of restrictive monetary policy enacted by the Federal Reserve. At the time, the stated policy of the Fed was to reduce inflation, a process which limited economic expansion. The immediate cause of the recession was a loss of consumer and business confidence as a result of the 1990 oil price shock, coupled with an already weak economy. [5] Another factor that may have contributed to the weakening of the economy, was the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which lowered investment incentives and contributed to the end of the real estate valuation boom of the early to mid-1980s.
July 1990 marked the end of what was at the time the longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history. [2] [5] Prior to the onset of the early 1990s recession, the nation enjoyed robust job growth and a declining unemployment rate. The Labor Department estimates that as a result of the recession, the economy shed 1.623 million jobs or 1.3% of non-farm payrolls. The bulk of these losses were in construction and manufacturing. [2] Among the hardest hit regions were the New England states and the West Coast, while the Midwest and South Central regions were less affected. [6]
Job losses and unemployment continued to rise and peaked at 7.8% in June 1992. Gross domestic product grew at a slow and erratic pace in the year that followed the official March 1991 end of the recession, but picked up pace in 1992. Exports, typically a driver of economic recovery, weakened due to persistent economic problems in Europe and Japan. [7] Perhaps the largest impact on the protracted period of unemployment following the early 90s recession were large layoffs in defense related industries. Cumulative defense downsizing resulted in 240,000 job losses from 1990 to 1992, representing a full 10% reduction in that sector. These cutbacks also spilled over into transportation, wholesale, trade, and other sectors tied to defense related durable goods manufacturing. [7] For all of 1991, the United States incurred a net loss of 858,000 jobs, with 1.154 million created in 1992 and 2.788 million in 1993.
Other factors contributed to a slow economy, including a slump in office construction resulting from overbuilding during the 1980s. [8] Local markets in the New England states, Southern California, and Texas in particular experienced the effects of commercial overbuilding, reflected in the number of bank failures and the proportion of commercial investments held by those banks. Real estate values would remain depressed through 1995, when they would return to growth. [9] In addition, consumer confidence moved at an erratic pace, limiting the surge in consumption expenditures that is typical of recovery periods. As a result, businesses were reluctant to hire on concerns over the strength of the economic recovery. [8]
Ultimately, the recession proved to be one of the smallest and shortest in the modern era, underwhelmed in most metrics only by the 2000-01 recession. The economy returned to 1980s level growth by 1993, fueled by the desktop computer productivity boom, low interest rates, low energy prices, and a resurgent housing market. Strong growth resumed and lasted through the year 2000. Although relatively mild, the early 1990s recession was the only interruption to economic expansion during the 1990s.
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction that occurs when there is a period of broad decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending. This may be triggered by various events, such as a financial crisis, an external trade shock, an adverse supply shock, the bursting of an economic bubble, or a large-scale anthropogenic or natural disaster. There is no official definition of a recession, according to the IMF.
An economic depression is a period of carried long-term economic downturn that is the result of lowered economic activity in one or more major national economies. It is often understood in economics that economic crisis and the following recession that may be named economic depression are part of economic cycles where the slowdown of the economy follows the economic growth and vice versa. It is a result of more severe economic problems or a downturn than the recession itself, which is a slowdown in economic activity over the course of the normal business cycle of growing economy.
The early 1990s recession describes the period of economic downturn affecting much of the Western world in the early 1990s. The impacts of the recession contributed in part to the 1992 U.S. presidential election victory of Bill Clinton over incumbent president George H. W. Bush. The recession also included the resignation of Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, the reduction of active companies by 15% and unemployment up to nearly 20% in Finland, civil disturbances in the United Kingdom and the growth of discount stores in the United States and beyond.
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community." The NBER is known for proposing start and end dates for recessions in the United States.
A jobless recovery or jobless growth is an economic phenomenon in which a macroeconomy experiences growth while maintaining or decreasing its level of employment. The term was coined by the economist Nick Perna in the early 1990s.
The early 2000s recession was a major decline in economic activity which mainly occurred in developed countries. The recession affected the European Union during 2000 and 2001 and the United States from March to November 2001. The UK, Canada and Australia avoided the recession, while Russia, a nation that did not experience prosperity during the 1990s, began to recover from it. Japan's 1990s recession continued. A combination of the Dot Com Bubble collapse and the September 11th attacks lengthed and worsened the recession.
The early 1980s recession was a severe economic recession that affected much of the world between approximately the start of 1980 and 1982. It is widely considered to have been the most severe recession since World War II until the 2007–2008 financial crisis.
Growth Recession is a term in economics that refers to a situation where economic growth is slow, but not low enough to be a technical recession, yet unemployment still increases.
The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country. At the time, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded that it was the most severe economic and financial meltdown since the Great Depression.
The Depression of 1920–1921 was a sharp deflationary recession in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries, beginning 14 months after the end of World War I. It lasted from January 1920 to July 1921. The extent of the deflation was not only large, but large relative to the accompanying decline in real product.
The Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) is a journal of macroeconomics published twice a year by the Brookings Institution Press. Each issue of the journal comprises the proceedings of a conference held biannually by the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. The conference and journal both "emphasize innovative analysis that has an empirical orientation, take real-world institutions seriously, and is relevant to economic policy."
The 1990s economic boom in the United States was a major economic expansion that lasted between 1993 and 2001, coinciding with the economic policies of the Clinton administration. It began following the early 1990s recession during the presidency of George H.W. Bush and ended following the infamous dot-com crash in 2000. Until July 2019, it was the longest recorded economic expansion in the history of the United States.
The 1973–1975 recession or 1970s recession was a period of economic stagnation in much of the Western world during the 1970s, putting an end to the overall post–World War II economic expansion. It differed from many previous recessions by involving stagflation, in which high unemployment and high inflation existed simultaneously.
The Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) based in New York City, is an independent institute formed in 1996 by Geoffrey H. Moore, Anirvan Banerji, and Lakshman Achuthan. It provides economic modeling, financial databases, economic forecasting, and market cycles services to investment managers, business executives, and government policymakers.
Unemployment in the United States discusses the causes and measures of U.S. unemployment and strategies for reducing it. Job creation and unemployment are affected by factors such as economic conditions, global competition, education, automation, and demographics. These factors can affect the number of workers, the duration of unemployment, and wage levels.
In the United States, the Great Recession was a severe financial crisis combined with a deep recession. While the recession officially lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, it took many years for the economy to recover to pre-crisis levels of employment and output. This slow recovery was due in part to households and financial institutions paying off debts accumulated in the years preceding the crisis along with restrained government spending following initial stimulus efforts. It followed the bursting of the housing bubble, the housing market correction and subprime mortgage crisis.
The United States entered recession in January 1980 and returned to growth six months later in July 1980. Although recovery took hold, the unemployment rate remained unchanged through the start of a second recession in July 1981. The downturn ended 16 months later, in November 1982. The economy entered a strong recovery and experienced a lengthy expansion through 1990.
The early 1990s recession saw a period of economic downturn affect much of the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The economy of Australia suffered its worst recession since the Great Depression.