As bad as you may think the economy is now, it’s nowhere near the 1970s | CNN Business

13 comments

1. Thanks we all really needed an “it could be worse” pick me up.

2. Graduating from college in the early ’70s, jobs were scarce and after earning my bachelor’s I had to start part-time before the company eventually bumped me to full-time about a year later. Christmas bonuses were frozen turkeys. However, people didn’t complain like they do today.

3. We are in a boom. Why are you saying it is bad? Only propagandists are brainwashing people to think economic situation is bad especially for others but not themselves.

4. All eras had bad elements.

   The 80s weren’t that much better. I graduated in 1981, unemployment rate was over 7%. I bought my first house in 1986. I got a 9.75 interest rate. My loan officer had been doing it for about 3 years. He said that was the first mortgage he ever did under 10%.

   Now, when I graduated, the jobs no one wanted (store manager, insurance sales) paid about $18k a year. That is about $60k in today’s money. Today those jobs wouldn’t pay $40k.

5. The massive wealth inequality and semi-rigid class system of 100 years ago appears to be coming back…. The 70s was when it kind of started….

6. 70s and the 90s were dead zones.
   Got out at the end of college, they gave me minimum wage. Bastards.

7. CNN gaslighting us once again about the economy. Who would’ve guessed?

8. Now they’re at the bargaining stage. Only two more stages to go before they accept that poor people exist.

9. *so far

10. “Democrats fucked up the economy much worse with inflationary fiscal policy in the 60s and 70s during the ‘War on Poverty’ that didn’t get better until the 80s when Republicans rolled back some of the inflationary fiscal policies.”

11. Our economy is in better shape than it was in 1929 but doesn’t mean it’s good

12. This is an important point. Some didn’t live through the 70’s so they don’t have that comparison to lean on.

    Currently, unemployment is at 3.9%. As a comparison, in the 1980 recession, unemployment was at 7.2%, and it rose to 10.8% in 1982.

    Yes, some people are struggling. Housing and food are too high, and there is rising consumer debt, but current unemployment is at a historical low.

13. Its an election year, which means the party out of power will claim that the economy is absolute dogshit, even though the stock market is bursting through record highs and unemployment still sits under 4%.

    Meanwhile, the party in power will claim that the economy has never been better in our lifetimes, while inflation is destroying the median household at the grocery store and wages are unable to keep up.