Inflation declined 48%, from 8.9 to 4.6%.
Unemployment declined 45%, from 7.5 to 5.2.%.
Interest rates declined 71.9%, from 21 to 5.9%.
Twenty-one million new jobs were created.
ended the cold war
Unfortunately, like so much of the Clinton-Gore legacy, it just ain't so. Ronald Reagan presided over what was at the time the longest continuous peacetime economic expansion, during which GDP increased by the size of West Germany, real per capita incomes grew by one-fifth, the rate of manufacturing productivity growth tripled, exports doubled, unemployment and inflation were halved, and Americans enjoyed 21 million net new jobs and 4.5 million new businesses. The record Clinton and Gore today vilify sounds very much like the one they are trying to run on, except Reagan's numbers are all the more impressive because of the Carter malaise he had to build on and the smaller national population.
Indeed, between 1983 and 1989 the economy grew by 4 percent annually. It grew by 2.6 percent annually during most of Clinton's term. In order for this period of growth to be the longest economic expansion in history, Clinton and Gore must concede that it began 21 months before they took office, under the presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush. Otherwise, Reagan's record for the longest peacetime expansion still stands.
Unemployment declined 45%, from 7.5 to 5.2.%.
Interest rates declined 71.9%, from 21 to 5.9%.
Twenty-one million new jobs were created.
ended the cold war
Unfortunately, like so much of the Clinton-Gore legacy, it just ain't so. Ronald Reagan presided over what was at the time the longest continuous peacetime economic expansion, during which GDP increased by the size of West Germany, real per capita incomes grew by one-fifth, the rate of manufacturing productivity growth tripled, exports doubled, unemployment and inflation were halved, and Americans enjoyed 21 million net new jobs and 4.5 million new businesses. The record Clinton and Gore today vilify sounds very much like the one they are trying to run on, except Reagan's numbers are all the more impressive because of the Carter malaise he had to build on and the smaller national population.
Indeed, between 1983 and 1989 the economy grew by 4 percent annually. It grew by 2.6 percent annually during most of Clinton's term. In order for this period of growth to be the longest economic expansion in history, Clinton and Gore must concede that it began 21 months before they took office, under the presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush. Otherwise, Reagan's record for the longest peacetime expansion still stands.
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