One of the outstanding features of recoveries from the 1990-91, 2001 and 2007-09 recessions was the mild recoveries from each. Except for the boom of the late nineties when real GDP grew between 4 and 5 % (1997-2000), real GDP between 1992 and 2019 grew at annual rate of less than 4 % each year. During the 28 year period from 1992 to 2020 inflation, except for a brief period in 2005-06, generally fell in the 1 to 3 % range, which had not been the case for the quarter century 1967-1991. While other factors, no doubt, also contributed to very low inflation, surely the weak recoveries were an important factor tending to mitigate inflationary pressure. This was especially true of the decade of tepid recovery after the Great Recession of 2007-09. The unemployment rate peaked at 9.5% in both 2009 (the cyclical trough) and 2010, and still averaged about 8% in 2012. In contrast, unemployment peaked during April 2020 at 14.7% for the Covid Contraction and fell very quickly -- about1% per month in 2020 so that by December of that year that rate had plummeted to 6.7% and it would sink further to 3.6% by early 2022. It would seem that the sharp monetary and fiscal stimulus that contributed to the strong and rapid recovery from the 2020 recession, among other factors, such as covid-induced supply side issues, contributed to reflation that has seen the U.S. CPI to rises at annual rate of 8.5% by early 2022.

More John Matthew Golden's questions See All
Similar questions and discussions