Mises Wire

Federal Reserve Policy Gets Worse Over Time

Percent Job Losses in Post WWII Recession

If you examine the attached graph one factor that might jump out at you is that the current “recovery” has been the worst one since WWII in terms of the percentage job losses and the time necessary for a full recovery in the job market making it, already, the most expensive since WWII.

Another less clear, but equally valid observation is that the post-WWII recession have become progressively more costly in terms of percentage job losses and duration of recovery. The four recoveries post-Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 were the four longest and costliest recoveries of the WWII and this data suggests that things have only become worse over time.

The shortest and shallowest recovery — 1980 — should probably be considered part of the recession of 1981. The recession of 1948 was one of the deepest and longest during the period, but it should be attributed to the readjustment at the end of WWII and not really a true recession. The recessions of 1953, 1957, and 1960 could be considered the typical recession of the Bretton Woods period. The recessions of 1969 and 1974 combine to form the period of stagflation brought about the Bretton Woods Crisis, President Nixon taking us off the gold standard, and the Stagflation of the 1970s.

The clear lesson is that as the Fed has become more powerful and destructive that the resulting business cycles it has caused have grown deeper, longer, and more painful.

Image
15 or More Weeks of Unemployment

 

 

All Rights Reserved ©
Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.
What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. 

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

Become a Member
Mises Institute