List of recessions in the United States
Name Period Range Duration ( months ) Time since previous recession ( months ) Peak unemploy­ment GDP decline ( peak to trough ) Characteristics
Great Depression Aug 1929-Mar 1933 Oct 1929-Dec 1941 43 3 years 7 months 021 1 year 9 months 24.9 21.3% ( 1932 ) - 24.9% ( 1933 ) 26.7 −26.7% A banking panic and a collapse in the money supply took place in the United States that was exacerbated by international commitment to the gold standard . Extensive new tariffs and other factors contributed to an extremely deep depression . GDP , industrial production , employment , and prices fell substantially . A small economic expansion within the depression began in 1933 , with gold inflow expanding the money supply and improving expectations ; the expansion would end in 1937 . The ultimate recovery , which would occur with the start of World War II in 1940 , was credited to monetary policy and monetary expansion
Recession of 1937-1938 1937 May 1937-June 1938 13 1 year 1 month 050 4 years 2 months 19.0 17.8% - 19.0% ( 1938 ) 18.2 −18.2% The Recession of 1937 is only considered minor when compared to the Great Depression , but is otherwise among the worst recessions of the 20th century . Three explanations are offered as causes for the recession : the tight fiscal policy resulting from an attempt to balance the budget after New Deal spending ; the tight monetary policy of the Federal Reserve ; and the declining profits of businesses leading to a reduction in business investment
Recession of 1945 1945 Feb 1945-Oct 1945 08 8 months 080 6 years 8 months 05.2 5.2% ( 1946 ) 12.7 −12.7% The decline in government spending at the end of World War II led to an enormous drop in gross domestic product , making this technically a recession . This was the result of demobilization and the shift from a wartime to peacetime economy . The post-war years were unusual in a number of ways ( unemployment was never high ) , and this era may be considered a sui generis end-of-the-war recession
Recession of 1949 1948 Nov 1948-Oct 1949 11 11 months 037 3 years 1 month 07.9 7.9% ( Oct 1949 ) 01.7 −1.7% The 1948 recession was a brief economic downturn ; forecasters of the time expected much worse , perhaps influenced by the poor economy in their recent lifetimes . The recession also followed a period of monetary tightening
Recession of 1953 1953 July 1953-May 1954 10 10 months 045 3 years 9 months 06.1 6.1% ( Sep 1954 ) 02.6 −2.6% After a post- Korean War inflationary period , more funds were transferred to national security . In 1951 , the Federal Reserve reasserted its independence from the U.S. Treasury and in 1952 , the Federal Reserve changed monetary policy to be more restrictive because of fears of further inflation or of a bubble forming
Recession of 1958 1957 Aug 1957-April 1958 08 8 months 039 3 years 3 months 07.5 7.5% ( July 1958 ) 03.7 −3.7% Monetary policy was tightened during the two years preceding 1957 , followed by an easing of policy at the end of 1957 . The budget balance resulted in a change in budget surplus of 0.8% of GDP in 1957 to a budget deficit of 0.6% of GDP in 1958 , and then to 2.6% of GDP in 1959
Recession of 1960-61 1960 Apr 1960-Feb 1961 10 10 months 024 2 years 07.1 7.1% ( May 1961 ) 01.6 −1.6% Another primarily monetary recession occurred after the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates in 1959 . The government switched from deficit ( or 2.6% in 1959 ) to surplus ( of 0.1% in 1960 ) . When the economy emerged from this short recession , it began the second-longest period of growth in NBER history . The Dow Jones Industrial Average ( Dow ) finally reached its lowest point on February 20 , 1961 , about 4 weeks after President Kennedy was inaugurated
Recession of 1969-70 1969 Dec 1969-Nov 1970 11 11 months 106 8 years 10 months 06.1 6.1% ( Dec 1970 ) 00.6 −0.6% The relatively mild 1969 recession followed a lengthy expansion . At the end of the expansion , inflation was rising , possibly a result of increased deficits . This relatively mild recession coincided with an attempt to start closing the budget deficits of the Vietnam War ( fiscal tightening ) and the Federal Reserve raising interest rates ( monetary tightening )
1973-75 recession 1973 Nov 1973-Mar 1975 16 1 year 4 months 036 3 years 09.0 9.0% ( May 1975 ) 03.2 −3.2% The 1973 oil crisis , a quadrupling of oil prices by OPEC , coupled with the 1973-1974 stock market crash led to a stagflation recession in the United States
1980 recession 1980 Jan 1980-July 1980 06 6 months 058 4 years 10 months 07.8 7.8% ( July 1980 ) 02.2 −2.2% The NBER considers a very short recession to have occurred in 1980 , followed by a short period of growth and then a deep recession . Unemployment remained relatively elevated in between recessions . The recession began as the Federal Reserve , under Paul Volcker , raised interest rates dramatically to fight the inflation of the 1970s . The early 1980s are sometimes referred to as a double-dip or W-shaped recession
1981-1982 recession 1981 July 1981-Nov 1982 16 1 year 4 months 012 1 year 10.8 10.8% ( Nov 1982 ) 02.7 −2.7% The Iranian Revolution sharply increased the price of oil around the world in 1979 , causing the 1979 energy crisis . This was caused by the new regime in power in Iran , which exported oil at inconsistent intervals and at a lower volume , forcing prices up . Tight monetary policy in the United States to control inflation led to another recession . The changes were made largely because of inflation carried over from the previous decade because of the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis
Early 1990s recession in the United States 1990 July 1990-Mar 1991 08 8 months 092 7 years 8 months 07.8 7.8% ( June 1992 ) 01.4 −1.4% After the lengthy peacetime expansion of the 1980s , inflation began to increase and the Federal Reserve responded by raising interest rates from 1986 to 1989 . This weakened but did not stop growth , but some combination of the subsequent 1990 oil price shock , the debt accumulation of the 1980s , and growing consumer pessimism combined with the weakened economy to produce a brief recession
Early 2000s recession 2001 Mar 2001-Nov 2001 08 8 months 120 10 years 06.3 6.3% ( June 2003 ) 00.3 −0.3% The 1990s once were the longest period of growth in American history . The collapse of the speculative dot-com bubble , a fall in business outlays and investments , and the September 11th attacks , brought the decade of growth to an end . Despite these major shocks , the recession was brief and shallow
Great Recession 2007 Dec 2007-June 2009 18 1 year 6 months 073 6 years 1 month 10.0 10.0% ( October 2009 ) 03.9 −5.1% The subprime mortgage crisis led to the collapse of the United States housing bubble . Falling housing-related assets contributed to a global financial crisis , even as oil and food prices soared . The crisis led to the failure or collapse of many of the United States ' largest financial institutions : Bear Stearns , Fannie Mae , Freddie Mac , Lehman Brothers , and AIG , as well as a crisis in the automobile industry . The government responded with an unprecedented $ 700 billion bank bailout and $ 787 billion fiscal stimulus package . The National Bureau of Economic Research declared the end of this recession over a year after the end date . The Dow Jones Industrial Average ( Dow ) finally reached its lowest point on March 9 , 2009
COVID Crisis Feb 2020-present 129 10 years 8 months The first documented case of the novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan , China in November 2019 . The government in China first instituted travel restrictions , quarantines and stay-at-home orders . When efforts to contain the virus in China were unsuccessful , other countries instituted similar measures in an attempt to contain and slow the spread of the virus , which prompted many cities to close . The initial outbreak expanded into a global pandemic . The economic effects of the pandemic were severe . More than 24 million people lost jobs in the United States in just three weeks . Official economic impact of the virus is still being determined but the stock market responded negatively to the shock to supply chains , primarily in technology industries
Great Depression onward
@ media all and ( max-width:720px ) { .mw-parser-output .mobile-float-reset { float : none ! important ; width:100% ! important } } .mw-parser-output .stack-container { box-sizing : border-box } .mw-parser-output .stack-clear-left { float : left ; clear : left } .mw-parser-output .stack-clear-right { float : right ; clear : right } .mw-parser-output .stack-left { float : left } .mw-parser-output .stack-right { float : right } .mw-parser-output .stack-object { margin:1px ; overflow : hidden } A destitute family in California in 1936 . Following the severe Great Depression , the post-World War II economy has seen long expansions and , for the most part , less severe recessions than in earlier American history . Annualized GDP change from 1923 to 2009 . Data are annual from 1923 to 1946 and quarterly from 1947 to the second quarter of 2009 . Following the end of World War II and the large adjustment as the economy adjusted from wartime to peacetime in 1945 , the collection of many economic indicators , such as unemployment and GDP , became standardized . Recessions after World War II may be compared to each other much more easily than previous recessions because of these available data . The listed dates and durations are from the official chronology of the National Bureau of Economic Research . [ 6 ] GDP data are from the Bureau of Economic Analysis , unemployment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics ( after 1948 ) . The unemployment rate often reaches a peak associated with a recession after the recession has officially ended . [ 38 ] Until the start of the coronavirus recession in 2020 , no post-World War II era came anywhere near the depth of the Great Depression . In the Great Depression , GDP fell by 27% ( the deepest after demobilization is the recession beginning in December 2007 , during which GDP has fallen 5.1% as of the second quarter of 2009 ) and unemployment rate reached 10% ( the highest since was the 10.8% rate reached during the 1981–82 recession ) . [ 39 ] The National Bureau of Economic Research dates recessions on a monthly basis back to 1854 ; according to their chronology , from 1854 to 1919 , there were 16 cycles . The average recession lasted 22 months , and the average expansion 27 . From 1919 to 1945 , there were six cycles ; recessions lasted an average 18 months and expansions for 35 . From 1945 to 2001 , and 10 cycles , recessions lasted an average 10 months and expansions an average of 57 months . [ 6 ] This has prompted some economists to declare that the business cycle has become less severe . [ 40 ]
There have been as many as 47 recessions in the United States dating back to the Articles of Confederation, and although economists and historians dispute certain 19th-century recessions, the consensus view among economists and historians is that The cyclical volatility of GNP and unemployment was greater before the Great Depression than it has been since the end of World War II. Cycles in the country's agricultural production, industrial production, consumption, business investment, and the health of the banking industry contribute to these declines. U.S. recessions have increasingly affected economies on a worldwide scale, especially as countries' economies become more intertwined. The unofficial beginning and ending dates of recessions in the United States have been defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), an American private nonprofit research organization. The NBER defines a recession as a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than two quarters which is 6 months, normally visible in real gross domestic product (GDP), real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. In the 19th century, recessions frequently coincided with financial crises. Determining the occurrence of pre-20th-century recessions is more difficult due to the dearth of economic statistics, so scholars rely on historical accounts of economic activity, such as contemporary newspapers or business ledgers. Although the NBER does not date recessions before 1857, economists customarily extrapolate dates of U.S. recessions back to 1790 from business annals based on various contemporary descriptions. Their work is aided by historical patterns, in that recessions often follow external shocks to the economic system such as wars and variations in the weather affecting agriculture, as well as banking crises. Major modern economic statistics, such as unemployment and GDP, were not compiled on a regular and standardized basis until after World War II. The average duration of the 11 recessions between 1945 and 2001 is 10 months, compared to 18 months for recessions between 1919 and 1945, and 22 months for recessions from 1854 to 1919. Because of the great changes in the economy over the centuries, it is difficult to compare the severity of modern recessions to early recessions.