{"id":6674357,"date":"2020-06-25T22:53:09","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T22:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfe.econ.jhu.edu\/?p=6674357"},"modified":"2021-03-15T13:09:34","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T13:09:34","slug":"6674357-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krieger.jhu.edu\/financial-economics\/2020\/06\/25\/6674357-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lost Four Years, But Better Than Hoover"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The United States may be on the verge of an unfortunate accomplishment rarely reached in the last century: a presidential four-year term in which real per capita GDP was lower when the term ended than when it began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The International Monetary Fund estimated this week that the real gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States will fall 8% year over year in 2020, as a result of the worldwide recession brought on by COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If that estimate proves correct \u2013 and there is great uncertainty about that — it would be the worst year for GDP in the United States since 1946, when the United States slashed production of armaments following World War II. These figures are based on total real GDP in one year compared to total real GDP in the prior year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One way to measure economic growth is to look at real per capita GDP \u2013 the size of the economy per person living in it, after adjusting for inflation. Official U.S. Government calculations of that are available from 1929 through 2019, and the Maddison Project, an international collaboration of economists based in the Netherlands, has updated estimates made by the late Angus Maddison, a professor at the University of Groningen. That project has estimated per capita GDP in the United States and many other countries going back centuries.1<\/a><\/sup> The accompanying charts use those estimates back to Thomas Jefferson\u2019s first term that started in 1801.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The charts measure real per capita GDP growth from the year before a presidential term began through the final year of the term. It assumes the IMF forecast of total GDP is accurate, and that U.S. population will grow as fast \u2013 half a percent a year \u2013 in 2020 as it has in the past couple of years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n