On this day last year, I posted two charts that I developed using the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank’s interactive website.
Those two charts showed that the current recovery was very weak compared to the boom of the early 1980s.
But perhaps that was an unfair comparison.
Maybe the Reagan recovery started strong and then hit a wall. Or maybe the Obama recovery was the economic equivalent of a late bloomer.
So let’s look at the same charts, but add an extra year of data. Does it make a difference?
Meh… not so much.
Let’s start with the GDP data. The comparison is striking. Under Reagan’s policies, the economy skyrocketed. Heck, the chart prepared by the Minneapolis Fed doesn’t even go high enough to show how well the economy performed during the 1980s.