...Yes, the US economy was troubled in that era. But the performance wasn’t nearly as bad as later legend had it, especially when we consider the incomes of middle-class families. Furthermore, the preferred right-wing narrative about why the 70s were worse than the 60s has absolutely no empirical support.
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What you can see, however, is that this pattern of recessions followed by disappointing recoveries has been the norm for the past 40 years; it began in the 1970s, but it didn’t end then...
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The 73-79 cycle was lousy by pre-73 standards, but real median income did end up notably higher despite sharply rising oil prices. Perhaps surprisingly given the legend, “morning in America” didn’t do much better, despite a sharp fall in oil prices — in fact, the annual growth rate was almost exactly the same. And the “Bush boom” was much worse, with essentially no gain in incomes even before the financial crisis struck. The only halfway convincing boom, at least as far as middle-class families are concerned, took place in the 1990s.
So whence the impression that the 70s were completely horrible, while Reaganomics was a triumph? Part of the answer is inflation, which did feel out of control even if it was largely matched by wage increases. But one suspects that the trashing of the 70s also reflects the reality that those doing the trashing don’t really care about ordinary families; what they care about is this...
