1990 American Economic Recession

As of the fourthquarter of calendar year 1990, the American economy entered recession (Council of Economic Advisers, 1992, p. 3). Thus, for five consecutive quarters, the GNP has declined; the longest GNP decline since the fourquarter decline in the first Reagan Administrationfourthquarter of calendar year 1981 through the thirdquarter of calendar year 1982 (Council of Economic Advisers, 1984, p. 222; Council of Economic Advisers, 1992, p. 3).

The preliminary report of the secondquarter of calendar year 1991 economic performance had indicated that the GNP had grown 0.4 percent during the quarter. That preliminary report caused President Bush and his economic advisers to declare that the recession was over. Declaring the end of the recession also provided the president with an excuse not to trigger the longterm unemployment compensation extension then recently enacted. The revised data, cast new doubts on the underlying strength of the economy, and the extent to which it will be able to bounce back from recession. In the secondquarter of 1992, the Bush Administration is once again touting the end of the recession. A significant decline in retail sales in March 1992 (reported on 14 April), however, is once again casting doubts on claims of economic recovery (The New York Times, 1992, B1).

The economic and political advisers to the Reagan and Bush Administrations began to sound somewhat like those to the Kennedy

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strong emergence from the recession will prove to be even more difficult. Of the economic performance in the United States over the past 10 years, it may be said with some considerable justification that productivity gains have occurred, and that employment levels have increased (although unemployment has increased during the current recession), since the depth of the preceding recession was reached in 1982. There have been all along, however, some troubling aspects to the economy. While employment increased and unemployment declined (until the advent of the current recession), unemployment declined only from the unusually high levels reached in the early years of the first Reagan Administrationnot from the levels of the previous (Carter) administration (Council of Economic Advisers, 1992, p. 21). With growth in the population and the size of the workforce, there were actually more persons unemployed in 1991 than were unemployed at the end of the Carter Administration's term in office. Employment in the United States, thus, continues to be a major problem. Significant economic growth occurred in the United States during the years of the two Reagan Administrations; however, all is not perfect in this context either. In
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Approximate Word count = 1794
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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