This paper updates Ronald Reagan's famous question during the 1980 presidential election: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" by comparing the state of the economy in 2000 and 2008. We use 25 indicators of economic well-being and economic performance and find that 23 of the 25 indicators are worse in 2008 than they were in 2000. Even after we limit comparisons to similar points across the business cycle, the same 23 indicators were worse at the most recent business-cycle peak (2007) than they were in 2000.
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Paper provided by Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in its series CEPR Reports and Issue Briefs with number
2008-27.
Length: 16 pages Date of creation: Oct 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:epo:papers:2008-27
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Find related papers by JEL classification: E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
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