Every year, people, animals, machines, etc. "produce" goods and services. One method that economists use to measure this activity is "Gross Domestic Product". This is a dollar denominated metric by which the amount of money spent on goods and services is totaled and used as a metric for "production". An increase in GDP is popularly called "economic growth."
Of course, a decline in the value of the dollar also increases nominal GDP because the amount spent goes up. If I spend $1 on a hammer in one year and $2 on the same hammer in another year, that would be reflected in a higher GDP despite there being no meaningful change in economic activity. This is why economists don't talk about nominal GDP (and actually measurable statistic) very much — an increase in nominal GDP does not necessarily reflect an increase in economic activity. The media and economists often talk about "real GDP" or "inflation adjusted GDP". These numbers do not reflect actually measurable events — they are calculations resulting from subjective estimates of inflation. There are many people who are deeply skeptical regarding the reliability of these "adjustments".
Nominal GDP in 2008 was roughly $14.5 trillion, and nominal GDP was roughly $28 trillion (every quarter there's an annualized number released so there's no one annual number).
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP
"Real GDP" varies based on how inflation is calculated. Currently, many government sources use 2017 as the year from which inflation adjustments are made. The chart below has a figure of a little less than $17 trillion for real GDP in 2008 and a little less than $23 trillion in 2024.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1
These numbers reflect somewhere between a doubling in GDP and an increase of 35% in GDP since 2008.
My questions is this: are there any economic statistics that do not use dollars or money that reflect significant economic growth since 2008?
For instance, the amount of energy used in the US on an annual basis stopped rising in 2008.
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_19.pdf
It's hard to picture significant economic growth that does not show up in the energy statistics. We're not producing twice as much grain or sugar or other agricultural products or even 35% more. In many instances, we're producing less. There doesn't seem to be a meaningful increase in the number of housing units that we're building each year compared to 2008. Steel production never got back to 2008 levels.
So where's the increased "production" or "growth" that economists claim has occurred?
What non-dollar denominated evidence is there for economic growth in the US since 2008?
byu/jackist21 ineconomy
by jackist21
2 comments
Using the currency as a metric is the only objective way to measure the economic growth.
That said, I agree with you saying that GDP does not reflect the actual health of the economy. An increase in price for some good or service because of inflation should never count as growth.
An increase in price due to inflation is different than an increase in price because of an increasing demand. Only the latter should count as growth because it gives the incentive to produce more and more workers have to be hired.
In my opinion the issue comes from using a monetary unit of measurement that is not stable to itself for economists so are the meter and the second to physicists.
This is why economists are struggling (GDP, nominal GDP, adjusted GDP ?), they need to adjust their measurements accordingly, always.
Most of the growth is always population growth. More humans = more producers and consumers = more GDP.
American economists realized its cheaper to import poor desperate people and offset the birth cost (on average $18k) raising costs (daycare, school, food, shelter, etc) than to improve the lives of people already living here (so they reproduce on their own) to make the GDP always go up.
Now you know the real reason why GOP are against abortions.