ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that many government spending programs designed to help these people may have contributed to the inflation that harms them so much. The US economy is at a crossroads in its history. The most basic yardsticks of an economy’s performance are the level and growth rate of its people’s standard of living, normally measured by average income per person. By any yardstick, the performance of the US economy in the 1970s was abysmal. The most basic yardsticks of an economy’s performance are the level and growth rate of its people’s standard of living, normally measured by average income per person. The nature of unemployment in the postwar economy, particularly in the 1970s, has changed markedly. A major achievement of our economy in the 1970s was its ability rapidly, albeit not instantly, to expand employment at an astounding rate. Declining saving and investment in the United States has been matched by an abysmal international economic performance.
