The U.S. economy to 2008: a decade of continued growth (EXCERPT), Monthly Labor Review Online, Nov. 1999

The U.S. economy to 2008: a decade of continued growth

Norman C. Saunders and Betty W. Su

Note: projections for 1998-2008 have been superseded by projections for 2000-10

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projections envision a moderately growing economy
over the 1998–2008 decade, with gross domestic product (GDP) reaching $9.5 trillion in chained 1992 dollars by the end of the decade, an increase of almost $2 trillion over the period.¹ Rising by an average annual rate of 2.4 percent, GDP growth is projected to be somewhat slower than the 2.6-percent annual rate of growth over the preceding 10-year period, from 1988 to 1998. Slower growth of civilian household employment, from 1.3 percent a year during the 1988–98 period to 1.1 percent from 1998 to 2008, accompanies the slowdown in GDP growth. Civilian household employment is projected to increase by almost 16 million employees over the 1998–2008 period, slightly less than the increase of 16.5 million persons experienced between 1988 and 1998. The employment projection is accompanied by an assumed unemployment rate of 4.7 percent, only marginally higher than the 1998 annual average of 4.5 percent. To best understand what all this means for the U.S. economy, it is helpful to come to some understanding of the major economic events that took place during the decade of the 1980s and then, following the 1990–91 recession, over the remainder of the 1990s.

This excerpt is from an article published in the November 1999 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.

Read abstract Download full article in PDF (77K)

Footnotes
1 Real GDP and its components are stated in 1992 chain-weighted dollars. Chain weighting replaces the past practice of computing real GDP and its components by reference to fixed base-year prices with an averaging technique. The chain-weighted method calculates the prices of goods and services with weights that are appropriate for the specific periods or years being measured. As a result, for a particular year, the most detailed GDP components do not add up to their chain-weighted aggregates, and the chain-weighted aggregates do not add up to the chain-weighted real GDP. For more details, see "Preview of the Comprehensive Revision of the National Income and Product Accounts: BEA’s New Featured Measures of Output and Prices," Survey of Current Business, July 1995, pp. 31–38; and J. Steven Landefeld and Robert P. Parker, "BEA’s Chain Indexes, Time Series, and Measures of Long-Term Economic Growth," Survey of Current Business, May 1997, pp. 58–68. In the current article, discussions of GDP and its final demand components are couched in terms of real values unless otherwise noted. Finally, all historical National Income and Product Account data presented in the article are consistent with data published through the July 1999 issue of the Survey of Current Business.

The quality of BLS projections: a historical account.—May 1999
Employment outlook: 1996-2006.—Nov. 1997.: BLS projections to 2006--a summary.; Industry output and employment projections to 2006.; Labor force 2006: slowing down and changing composition.; Occupational employment projections to 2006.; The U.S. economy to 2006.

Within Monthly Labor Review Online:
Welcome | Current Issue | Index | Subscribe | Archives

Exit Monthly Labor Review Online:
BLS Home | Publications & Research Papers