Much is made on this forum and elsewhere of the two or three great boom times post-WWII: The mid-80's and the mid-late 90's (with the mid-late 60's also often cited).
However, I think if we were to pick two consecutive most-booming-years, 1977-78 would give 1983-84 and 1997-98 (or any two consecutive years from 1994-99) a run for their money, and maybe even come out ahead. Here are some numbers for those two years:
Payroll job growth - numbers in thousands:
Year____Jan____Feb____Mar____Apr____May____Jun____ Jul____Aug____Sep____Oct____Nov____Dec____TOTAL___AVG
1977____244____296_____403_____338_____360_____399____ 348____238_____458____262_____379_____235_____
3960_____330
1978____187____353_____513_____702_____346____442_____ 254____276_____137____336_____437_____282_____
4265_____355
source
Those two years are #3 and #2 respectively for the years post-WWII with the highest payroll job additions in absolute numbers. #1 is 1946 -- which, being the year after WWII ended, is going to be under somewhat unusual circumstances. 1984 is #6, 1994 is #7, 1983 is #9 and 1997 is #10. In the 60's, 1965 and 66 are the two highest ones at #18 and #19. If you calculate those as a % of total payrolls they're going to come out higher, of course, but I didn't bother doing that. And that said, since payrolls in 1977-78 were smaller than both the 80's and 90's booms, their booming-ness is all the more greater than those other two boom periods.
GDP, similarly, was also spectacular, albeit less so than payrolls, though it was also highly variable. That said, it does feature one quarter which is nothing short of jaw-dropping (note: this was not realized until recently while the BEA was doing benchmark revisions of previous years).
GDP growth by quarter
1977 Q1: 4.7%
1977 Q2: 8.1%
1977 Q3: 7.3%
1977 Q4: 0%
1978 Q1: 1.4%
1978 Q2: 16.5%(!!!)
1978 Q3: 4%
1978 Q4: 5.5%
source
On an annual basis, those two years grew 4.6% and 5.6% respectively. In this category, 1984 beats out both with a 7.3% annual growth rate for the whole year.
Of course, the downside to all this booming growth was that inflation was going through the roof - which, of course, is why most people don't usually remember them as boom years. In 1977 the annual inflation rate was 6.3% and 1978 it was 7.4% (
source). Though they were certainly high, those two years did still not match the peak years of 1979-81 in which the inflation rate was 9.8%, 12.4% and 10.4%.
Maybe if I get ambitious I'll look at some other data sets for those years (housing starts, etc).
Those were the days.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
