Economy of the United States
Template:Short description Template:Redirect Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox economy Template:Economy of the United States sidebar
The United States has a highly developed mixed economy.<ref>"U.S. Economy - Basic Conditions & Resources". U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Germany. "The United States is said to have a mixed economy because privately owned businesses and government both play important roles." Retrieved October 24, 2011.</ref><ref>(4)Outline of the U.S. Economy – (2)How the U.S. Economy Works. U.S. Embassy Information Resource Center. "As a result, the American economy is perhaps better described as a 'mixed' economy, with the government playing an important role along with private enterprise. Although Americans often disagree about exactly where to draw the line between their beliefs in both free enterprise and government management, the mixed economy they have developed has been remarkably successful." Retrieved October 24, 2011.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It is the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second largest by purchasing power parity (PPP).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> As of 2025, it has the world's seventh highest nominal GDP per capita and ninth highest GDP per capita by PPP.<ref name="IMFWEOUS"/> The U.S. accounts for 27% of the global economy in 2025 in nominal terms, and about 16% in PPP terms.<ref name="IMF_datamapper">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The U.S. dollar is the currency of record most used in international transactions and is the world's reserve currency, backed by a large U.S. treasuries market, its role as the reference standard for the petrodollar system, and its linked eurodollar.<ref name="federalreserve.gov">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Several countries use it as their official currency and in others it is the de facto currency.<ref name="Benjamin J. Cohen 2006, p. 17">Benjamin J. Cohen, The Future of Money, Princeton University Press, 2006, Template:ISBN; cf. "the dollar is the de facto currency in Cambodia", Charles Agar, Frommer's Vietnam, 2006, Template:ISBN, p. 17</ref> Since the end of World War II, the economy has achieved relatively steady growth, low unemployment and inflation, and rapid advances in technology.<ref name="CIA_US"/>
The American economy is fueled by high productivity, well-developed transportation infrastructure, and extensive natural resources.<ref name="Wright, Gavin 2007 p. 185">Wright, Gavin, and Jesse Czelusta, "Resource-Based Growth Past and Present", in Natural Resources: Neither Curse Nor Destiny, ed. Daniel Lederman and William Maloney (World Bank, 2007), p. 185. Template:ISBN.</ref> Americans have the sixth highest average household and employee income among OECD member states.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2021, they had the highest median household income among OECD countries,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> although the country also had one of the world's highest income inequalities among the developed countries.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The largest U.S. trading partners are Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, Germany, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, India, and Vietnam.<ref name="auto">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The U.S. is the world's largest importer and second-largest exporter.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It has free trade agreements with several countries, including Canada and Mexico (through the USMCA), Australia, South Korea, Israel, and several others that are in effect or under negotiation.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The U.S. has a highly flexible labor market, where the industry adheres to a hire-and-fire policy, and job security is relatively low.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Kugler, Adriana D.. "The Effect of Job Security Regulations on Labor Market Flexibility: Evidence from the Colombian Labor Market Reform." In Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean. Edited by James J. Heckman, and Carmen Pages (eds). University of Chicago Press, 2004. Chicago Scholarship Online, 2013. {{#invoke:doi|main}}.</ref> Among OECD nations, the U.S. has a highly efficient social security system; social expenditure stood at roughly 30% of GDP.<ref name="Kenworthy">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Bradley et al.">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="US_welfare">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The United States is the world's largest producer of petroleum, natural gas, and blood products.<ref name="lop">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 2016, it was the world's largest trading country,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and second largest manufacturer, with American manufacturing making up a fifth of the global total.<ref name="Vargo, Frank">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The U.S. has the largest internal market for goods, and also dominates the services trade. Total U.S. trade was $4.2Template:Spacestrillion in 2018.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Of the world's 500 largest companies, 139 are headquartered in the U.S.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The U.S. has the world's highest number of billionaires, with total wealth of $5.7Template:Spacestrillion.<ref name="Forbes">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> U.S. commercial banks had $22.9Template:Spacestrillion in assets in December 2022.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> U.S. global assets under management had more than $30Template:Spacestrillion in assets.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> During the Great Recession of 2008, the U.S. economy suffered a significant decline.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Washington Post-Ezra Klein-Double Dip, or just one big economic dive-August 5, 2011</ref> The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act was enacted by the United States Congress, and in the ensuing years the U.S. experienced the longest economic expansion on record by July 2019.<ref name=CNBC_2019-07-02 >Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Bernanke_Recovery">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="nyt2018"/>
The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are the world's largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and trade volume.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="sfc.hk">Table A – Market Capitalization of the World's Top Stock Exchanges (As at end of June 2012). Securities and Exchange Commission (China).</ref> The U.S. has the world's largest gold reserves, with over 8,000 tonnes of gold.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2014, the U.S. economy was ranked first in international ranking on venture capital<ref>Adapting and evolvingTemplate:SndGlobal venture capital insights and trends 2014 Template:Webarchive. EY, 2014.</ref> and global research and development funding.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The U.S. spends around 3.46% of GDP on cutting-edge research and development across various sectors of the economy.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Consumer spending comprised 68% of the U.S. economy in 2022,<ref name=consumerecon>"Personal consumption expenditures (PCE)/gross domestic product (GDP)" FRED Graph, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis</ref> while its labor share of income was 44% in 2021.<ref>"Shares of gross domestic income: Compensation of employees, paid: Wage and salary accruals: Disbursements: To persons" FRED Graph, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis</ref> The U.S. has the world's largest consumer market.<ref name="unstats.un.org">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The nation's labor market has attracted immigrants from all over the world and its net migration rate is among the highest in the world.<ref name="The World Factbook">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The U.S. is one of the top-performing economies in studies such as the Ease of Doing Business Index, the Global Competitiveness Report, and others.<ref name="World Economic Forum">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
HistoryEdit
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Colonial era and 18th centuryEdit
The economic history of the United States began with British settlements along the Eastern seaboard in the 17th and 18th centuries. After 1700, the United States gained population rapidly, and imports as well as exports grew along with it. Africa, Asia, and most frequently Europe, contributed to the trade of the colonies.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> These 13 colonies gained independence from the British Empire in the late 18th century<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and quickly grew from colonial economies towards an economy focused on agriculture.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
19th centuryEdit
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In 180 years, the United States grew to become a huge, integrated, and industrialized economy, which made up about a fifth of the world economy. In that process, the U.S. GDP per capita rose past that of many other countries, supplanting the British Empire at the top. The economy maintained high wages, attracting immigrants by the millions from all over the world.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In the 1820s and 1830s, mass production shifted much of the economy from artisans to factories. New government regulations strengthened patents.
Early in the 19th century, more than 80 percent of Americans engaged in farming. Most of the manufacturing centered on the first stages of the transformation of raw materials, with lumber and sawmills, textiles, and boots and shoes leading the way. The rich natural resources contributed to the rapid economic expansion of the nineteenth century. Ample land allowed the number of farmers to keep growing; but activity in manufacturing, services, transportation, and other sectors grew much faster, so that by 1860 the population was only about 50 percent rural, down from over 80 percent.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In the 19th century, recessions frequently coincided with financial crises. The Panic of 1837 was followed by a five-year depression, marked by bank failures and unprecedented unemployment.<ref>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Dead link</ref> Because of the great changes in the economy over the centuries, it is difficult to compare the severity of modern recessions to that of early recessions.<ref>Template:Cite book in Template:Harvnb</ref> Recessions after World War II appear to have been less severe than earlier recessions, but the reasons for this are unclear.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
20th centuryEdit
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At the beginning of the century, new innovations and improvements in existing innovations opened the door for improvements in the standard of living among American consumers. Many firms grew large by taking advantage of economies of scale and better communication to run nationwide operations. Concentration in these industries raised fears of monopolies that would drive prices higher and output lower, but many of these firms were cutting costs so fast that trends were towards lower prices and more output in these industries. Many workers shared the success of these large firms, which typically offered the highest wages in the world.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The United States has been the world's largest national economy in terms of GDP since around 1890.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> For many years following the Great Depression of the 1930s, when the danger of recession appeared most serious, the government strengthened the economy by spending heavily itself or cutting taxes so that consumers would spend more and by fostering rapid growth in the money supply, which also encouraged more spending. Ideas about the best tools for stabilizing the economy changed substantially between the 1930s and the 1980s. From the New Deal era that began in 1933 to the Great Society initiatives of the 1960s, national policymakers relied principally on fiscal policy to influence the economy.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
During the world wars of the twentieth century, the United States fared better than the rest of the combatants because none of the First World War and relatively little of the Second World War were fought on American territory (and none on the then-48 states). Yet, even in the United States, the wars meant sacrifice. During the peak of Second World War activity, nearly 40 percent of U.S. GDP was devoted to war production. Decisions about large swaths of the economy were largely made for military purposes, and nearly all relevant inputs were allocated to the war effort. Many goods were rationed, prices and wages controlled, and many durable consumer goods were no longer produced. Large segments of the workforce were inducted into the military and paid half their wages; roughly half of those were sent into harm's way.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The approach, advanced by British economist John Maynard Keynes, gave elected officials a leading role in directing the economy since spending and taxes are controlled by the U.S. president and Congress. The "Baby Boom" saw a dramatic increase in fertility in the period 1942–1957; it was caused by delayed marriages and childbearing during the depression years, a surge in prosperity, a demand for suburban single-family homes (as opposed to inner city apartments), and new optimism about the future. The boom peaked around 1957 and then began to fade.<ref name="Susan Kellogg 1988">Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions: a Social History of American Family Life (1988) ch 9</ref> A period of high inflation, interest rates, and unemployment after 1973 weakened confidence in fiscal policy as a tool for regulating the overall pace of economic activity.<ref name=buchanan1977>Template:Cite book</ref>
The U.S. economy grew by an average of 3.8% from 1946 to 1973, while real median household income surged by 74% (or 2.1% a year).<ref name=hhes>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Since the 1970s, several emerging countries have begun to close the economic gap with the United States. In most cases, this has been due to moving the manufacture of goods formerly made in the U.S. to countries where they could be made for sufficiently less money to cover the cost of shipping plus a higher profit. In other cases, some countries have gradually learned to produce the same products and services that previously only the U.S. and a few other countries could produce. Real income growth in the U.S. has slowed. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was popular in the U.S. to believe that Japan's economy would surpass that of the U.S., but this did not occur.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
21st centuryEdit
The United States economy experienced a recession in 2001 with an unusually slow jobs recovery, with the number of jobs not regaining the February 2001 level until January 2005.<ref name="Payems" /> This "jobless recovery" overlapped with the building of a housing bubble and arguably a wider debt bubble, as the ratio of household debt to GDP rose from a record level of 70% in Q1 2001 to 99% in Q1 2008. Homeowners were borrowing against their bubble-priced homes to fuel consumption, driving up their debt levels while providing an unsustainable boost to GDP. When housing prices began falling in 2006, the value of securities backed by mortgages fell dramatically, causing the equivalent of a bank run in the essentially unregulated non-depository banking system, which had outgrown the traditional, regulated depository banking system. Many mortgage companies and other non-depository banks (e.g., investment banks) faced a worsening crisis in 2007–2008, with the banking crisis peaking in September 2008, with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and bailouts of several other financial institutions.<ref name="FCIC_1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Bush administration (2001–2009) and Obama administrations (2009–2017) applied banking bailout programs and Keynesian stimulus via high government deficits, while the Federal Reserve maintained near-zero interest rates. These measures helped the economy recover, as households paid down debts in 2009–2012, the only years since 1947 where this occurred,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> presenting a significant barrier to recovery.<ref name="FCIC_1" /> Real GDP regained its pre-crisis (late 2007) peak by 2011,<ref name="FRED – Real GDP">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> household net worth by Q2 2012,<ref name="FRED – Household Net Worth">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> non-farm payroll jobs by May 2014,<ref name="Payems">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the unemployment rate by September 2015.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Each of these variables continued into post-recession record territory following those dates, with the U.S. recovery becoming the second longest on record in April 2018.<ref name="nyt2018">The New York Times. Casselbaum. "Up, Up, Up Goes the Economy" March 20, 2018.</ref>
The Great Recession occurred during the 2008 financial crisis, when GDP fell by 5.0% from the spring of 2008 to the spring of 2009. Other significant recessions took place in 1957–1958, when GDP fell 3.7% following the 1973 oil crisis, with a 3.1% fall from late 1973 to early 1975, and in the 1981–1982 recession, when GDP dropped by 2.9%.<ref name=gcn>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="cnn1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Recent, mild recessions have included the 1990–1991 downturn, when output fell by 1.3%, and the 2001 recession, in which GDP slid by 0.3%; the 2001 downturn lasted just eight months.<ref name="cnn1" /> The most vigorous, sustained periods of growth, on the other hand, took place from early 1961 to mid-1969, with an expansion of 53% (5.1% a year), from mid-1991 to late 2000, at 43% (3.8% a year), and from late 1982 to mid-1990, at 37% (4% a year).<ref name=gcn />
Debt held by the public, a measure of national debt, has risen throughout the 21st century. Rising from 31% in 2000 to 52% in 2009, and reaching 77% of GDP in 2017, the U.S. ranked 43rd highest in debt out of 207 countries.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
COVID-19 pandemicEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Template:Update section In the first two quarters of 2020 amid Donald Trump's presidency,<ref name="CNBC_Q3">Template:Cite news</ref> the U.S. economy suffered major setbacks beginning in March 2020, due to the novel coronavirus and having to "shut-down" major sectors of the American economy.<ref>President Trump's statements to reporters gathered at Joint Base Andrews on 5Template:SpacesMay 2020, before his departure en route to Phoenix, Arizona, Template:YouTube, May 5, 2020, minutes 10:06–10:14.</ref> As of March 2020, US exports of automobiles and industrial machines had plummeted as a result of the worldwide pandemic.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Social distancing measures which took effect in March 2020, and which negatively impacted the demand for goods and services, resulted in the US GDP declining at a 4.8% annualized rate in the first quarter, the steepest pace of contraction in output since the fourth quarter of 2008.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> US retails sales dropped a record 8.7% in March alone. The US airline industry had also been hit hard, seeing a sharp decline in its revenues.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The COVID-19 recession has been widely described as the most severe global economic downturn since the Great Depression and "far worse" than the Great Recession.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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In May 2020, CNN gave an analysis based on unemployment data that the US economy was perhaps the worst that it had been since the 1930s.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> By May 8, the US had reached a record 14.7 percent unemployment, with 20.5 million jobs lost in April.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, warned that it may take "an extended time" before the US economy fully recovers from weak economic growth, due to the pandemic, and that in the foreseeable future the US can expect "low productivity growth and stagnant incomes".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> By May 31, 2020, more than forty million Americans had filed for unemployment benefits.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
By June 2020, the slump in US continental flights due to the coronavirus pandemic had resulted in the US government temporarily halting service of fifteen US airlines to 75 domestic airports.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The New York Times reported on June 10, 2020, that "the United States budget deficit grew to a record $1.88Template:Spacestrillion for the first eight months of this fiscal year."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The US economy recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, growing by 5.7%, which was its best performance since Ronald Reagan's presidency (1981–1989).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2021–2022 marked a historical inflation surge in the United States, with the Consumer Price Index inflation rate hitting 9.1% higher in June 2022 than June 2021, constituting a 41-year high inflation rate with critics blaming the Federal Reserve among other factors.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Inflation rate reached 4.9% in April 2023, which was roughly 3% above the Federal Reserve's 2% target rate.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
DataEdit
Template:Further The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2023 (with IMF staff estimates in 2024–2029). Inflation below 5% is in green.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:Static row numbersTemplate:Sticky header
GDPEdit
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Private sector workers made ~$2 trillion or about 29.6% of all money earned in Q3 2023 (before taxes) Template:Legend Template:Legend
U.S. nominal GDP was $19.5Template:Spacestrillion in 2017, the largest in the world. Annualized, nominal GDP reached $20.1Template:Spacestrillion in Q1 2018, the first time it exceeded $20Template:Spacestrillion. About 70% of U.S. GDP is personal consumption, with business investment 18%, government 17% (federal, state and local but excluding transfer payments such as Social Security, which is in consumption) and net exports a negative 3% due to the U.S. trade deficit.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Real gross domestic product, a measure of both production and income, grew by 2.3% in 2017, vs. 1.5% in 2016 and 2.9% in 2015. Real GDP grew at a quarterly annualized rate of 2.2% in Q1 2018, 4.2% in Q2 2018, 3.4% in Q3 2018, and 2.2% in Q4 2018; the Q2 rate was the best growth rate since Q3 2014, and the overall yearly GDP growth of 2.9% in 2018 was the best performance of the economy in a decade.<ref name="Real_GDP" /> In 2020, the growth rate of the GDP has started to drop as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the GDP shrinking at a quarterized annual growth rate of −5.0% in Q1 2020Template:Citation needed and −32.9% in Q2 2020,Template:Citation needed respectively.
As of 2014, China passed the U.S. as the largest economy in GDP (PPP) terms, measured at purchasing power parity conversion rates. The U.S. had the highest GDP (PPP) figures for more than a century prior to that milestone; China has more than tripled the U.S. growth rate for each of the past 40 years. As of 2017, the European Union as an aggregate had a GDP roughly 5% larger than the U.S., although the former is a political union not a country. The United States', however, remained the world's largest economy with the highest nominal GDP.<ref>CIA World Factbook-United States-Retrieved July 29, 2018.</ref>
Real GDP per capita (measured in 2009 dollars) was $52,444 in 2017 and has been growing each year since 2010. It grew 3.0% per year on average in the 1960s, 2.1% in the 1970s, 2.4% in the 1980s, 2.2% in the 1990s, 0.7% in the 2000s, and 0.9% from 2010 to 2017.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Reasons for slower growth since 2000 are debated by economists and may include aging demographics, slower population and growth in labor force, slower productivity growth, reduced corporate investment, greater income inequality reducing demand, lack of major innovations, and reduced labor power.<ref>The New York Times. Adam Davidson. "Are We Doomed to Slow Growth?" February 17, 2016.</ref> The U.S. ranked 20th out of 220 countries in GDP per capita in 2017.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Among the modern U.S. Presidents, Bill Clinton had the highest cumulative percent real GDP increase during his two terms, Reagan second and Obama third.<ref name="Real_GDP">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The development of the nation's GDP according to World Bank:<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> U.S. real GDP grew by an average of 1.7% from 2000 to the first half of 2014, a rate around half the historical average up to 2000.<ref name="bea.gov">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
By economic sectorEdit
Nominal GDP sector compositionEdit
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Nominal GDP sector composition, 2015 (in millions of dollars) at 2005 constant prices<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
| Country/Economy | Real GDP | Agri. | Indus. | Serv. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template:Noflag World | 60,093,221 | 1,968,215 | 16,453,140 | 38,396,695 |
| Template:Flag | 15,160,104 | 149,023 | 3,042,332 | 11,518,980 |
Nominal GDP Sector Composition, 2016 (in millions of dollars) at current prices.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
| Country/Economy | Nominal GDP | Agri. | Indus. | Serv. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template:Flag | 18,624,450 | 204,868.95 | 3,613,143.3 | 14,806,437.75 | ||
| *Percentages from CIA World Factbook<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref> | |||||
EmploymentEdit
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There were approximately 160.4 million people in the U.S. labor force in 2017, the fourth largest labor force in the world behind China, India, and the European Union.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The government (federal, state and local) employed 22 million in 2010.<ref name="Mcfeatters">Template:Cite news</ref> Small businesses are the nation's largest employer, representing 37% of American workers.<ref name="sba.gov" /> The second-largest share of employment belongs to large businesses employing 36% of the U.S. workforce.<ref name="sba.gov" /> White collar workers comprise 44% of the workforce as of 2022, up from 34% in 2000.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The nation's private sector employs 85% of working Americans. Government accounts for 14% of all U.S. workers. Over 99% of all private employing organizations in the U.S. are small businesses.<ref name="sba.gov" /> The 30 million small businesses in the U.S. account for 64% of newly created jobs (those created minus those lost).<ref name="sba.gov" /> Jobs in small businesses accounted for 70% of those created in the last decade.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:Cbignore</ref>
The proportion of Americans employed by small business versus large business has remained relatively the same year by year as some small businesses become large businesses and just over half of small businesses survive for more than five years.<ref name="sba.gov" /> Amongst large businesses, several of the largest companies and employers in the world are American companies. Amongst them are Walmart, which is both the largest company and the largest private sector employer in the world. Walmart employs 2.1 million people worldwide and 1.4 million in the U.S. alone.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Walmart Corporate and Financial Facts.</ref>
There are nearly thirty million small businesses in the U.S.. Minorities such as Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans (35% of the country's population),<ref>"Minority population growing in the United States, census estimates show". Los Angeles Times. June 10, 2010.</ref> own 4.1 million of the nation's businesses. Minority-owned businesses generate almost $700Template:Spacesbillion in revenue, and they employ almost five million workers in the U.S.<ref name="sba.gov" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Americans have the highest average employee income among OECD nations.<ref name="autogenerated4">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The median household income in the U.S. as of 2008 is $52,029.<ref>Median Household Income for States: 2007 and 2008, September 2009, census.gov.</ref> About 284,000 working people in the U.S. have two full-time jobs and 7.6 million have part-time ones in addition to their full-time employments.<ref name="Mcfeatters" /> Out of all working individuals in the U.S., 12% belong to a labor union and most union members work for the government.<ref name="Mcfeatters" /> The decline of union membership in the U.S. over the last several decades parallels that of labor's share of the economy.<ref>Doree Armstrong (February 12, 2014). Jake Rosenfeld explores the sharp decline of union membership, influence. UW Today. See also: Jake Rosenfeld (2014) What Unions No Longer Do. Harvard University Press. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Keith Naughton, Lynn Doan and Jeffrey Green (February 20, 2015). As the Rich Get Richer, Unions Are Poised for Comeback. Bloomberg.
- "A 2011 study drew a link between the decline in union membership since 1973 and expanding wage disparity. Those trends have since continued, said Bruce Western, a professor of sociology at Harvard University who co-authored the study."</ref><ref>Michael Hiltzik (March 25, 2015). IMF agrees: Decline of union power has increased income inequality. Los Angeles Times.</ref> The World Bank ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and firing workers.<ref name="EDBI">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref> The United States is the only advanced economy that does not legally guarantee its workers paid vacation or paid sick days, and is one of just a few countries in the world without paid family leave as a legal right, with the others being Papua New Guinea, Suriname and Liberia.<ref>Rebecca Ray, Milla Sanes, and John Schmitt (May 2013). No-Vacation Nation Revisited. Center for Economic and Policy Research.</ref><ref>Tara Siegel Bernard (February 22, 2013). In Paid Family Leave, U.S. Trails Most of the Globe. The New York Times</ref><ref>Maxwell Strachan, Alissa Scheller, Jan Diehm (October 29, 2013). 15 Ways The United States Is The Best (At Being The Worst). The Huffington Post.</ref> In 2014 and again in 2020, the International Trade Union Confederation graded the U.S. a 4Template:Spacesout ofTemplate:Spaces5+, its third-lowest score, on the subject of workers' rights.<ref>Ishaan Tharoor (May 20, 2014). MAP: The worst places in the world to be a worker. The Washington Post. see also: ITUC Global Rights Index.</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Similarly, a 2023 study published by Oxfam found that the United States ranks among the worst among developed countries for labor protections.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Some scholars, including business theorist Jeffrey Pfeffer and political scientist Daniel Kinderman, posit that contemporary employment practices in the United States relating to the increased performance pressure from management, and the hardships imposed on employees such as toxic working environments, precarity, and long hours, could be responsible for 120,000 excess deaths annually, making the workplace the fifth leading cause of death in the United States.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
UnemploymentEdit
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As of December 2017, the unemployment rate in the U.S. was 4.1%<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> or 6.6 million people.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The government's broader U-6 unemployment rate, which includes the part-time underemployed, was 8.1%<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> or 8.2 million people. These figures were calculated with a civilian labor force of approximately 160.6 million people,<ref name="research.stlouisfed.org">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> relative to a U.S. population of approximately 327 million people.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Between 2009 and 2010, following the Great Recession, the emerging problem of jobless recoveries resulted in record levels of long-term unemployment with more than six million workers looking for work for more than six months as of January 2010. This particularly affected older workers.<ref name="Goodman">"Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs" article by Peter S. Goodman in The New York Times February 20, 2010.</ref> A year after the recession ended in June 2009, immigrants gained 656,000 jobs in the U.S., while U.S.-born workers lost more than a million jobs, due in part to an aging country (relatively more white retirees) and demographic shifts.<ref>"Immigrants top native born in U.S. job hunt". CNNMoney.com. October 29, 2010.</ref> In April 2010, the official unemployment rate was 9.9%, but the government's broader U-6 unemployment rate was 17.1%.<ref>"Broader U-6 Unemployment Rate Increases to 17.1% in April". The Wall Street Journal. May 7, 2010.</ref> Between February 2008 and February 2010, the number of people working part-time for economic reasons (i.e., would prefer to work full-time) increased by 4.0 million to 8.8 million, an 83% increase in part-time workers during the two-year period.<ref name="EconPost">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
By 2013, although the unemployment rate had fallen below 8%, the record proportion of long term unemployed and continued decreasing household income remained indicative of a jobless recovery.<ref name=SchwartzJobless>Template:Cite news</ref> However, the number of payroll jobs returned to its pre-recession (November 2007) level by May 2014 as the economy recovered.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
After being higher in the post-war period, the U.S. unemployment rate fell below the rising eurozone unemployment rate in the mid-1980s and has remained significantly lower almost continuously since.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1955, 55% of Americans worked in services, between 30% and 35% in industry, and between 10% and 15% in agriculture. By 1980, over 65% were employed in services, between 25% and 30% in industry, and less than 5% in agriculture.<ref>Time-Life Books, Library of Nations: United States, Sixth European English language printing, 1989</ref> Male unemployment continued to be significantly higher than those of females (at 9.8% vs. 7.5% in 2009). The unemployment among Caucasians continues being much lower than those for African-Americans (at 8.5% vs. 15.8% also in 2009).<ref name="CPS06052009">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The youth unemployment rate was 18.5% in July 2009, the highest rate in that month since 1948.<ref>"Employment and Unemployment Among Youth Summary". United States Department of Labor. August 27, 2009.</ref> The unemployment rate of young African Americans was 28.2% in May 2013.<ref>"The Unemployment News Is Worse For Many". Forbes. June 7, 2013.</ref>
The unemployment rate reached an all-time high of 14.7% in April 2020 before falling back to 11.1% in June 2020. Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Q2 GDP in the US fell 32.9% in 2020.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The unemployment rate continued its rapid decline falling to 3.9% in 2021.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It reached 3.7% in May 2023.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Employment by sectorEdit
U.S. employment, as estimated in 2012, is divided into 79.7% in the service sector, 19.2% in the manufacturing sector, and 1.1% in the agriculture sector.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Income and wealthEdit
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Income measuresEdit
Real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) median household income, a good measure of middle-class income, was $59,039 in 2016, a record level. However, it was just above the previous record set in 1998, indicating the purchasing power of middle-class family income has been stagnant or down for much of the past twenty years.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> During 2013, employee compensation was $8.969Template:Spacestrillion, while gross private investment totals $2.781Template:Spacestrillion.<ref name="Fed Z.1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Americans have the highest average household income among OECD nations, and in 2010 had the fourth-highest median household income, down from second-highest in 2007.<ref name="Household Income">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=autogenerated4 /> According to one analysis middle-class incomes in the United States fell into a tie with those in Canada in 2010, and may have fallen behind by 2014, while several other advanced economies have closed the gap in recent years.<ref>David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy (April 22, 2014). The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World's Richest. The New York Times.</ref>
Income inequalityEdit
Household net worth and wealth inequalityEdit
Template:Multiple image As of Q4 2017, total household net worth in the United States was a record $99Template:Spacestrillion, an increase of $5.2Template:Spacestrillion from 2016. This increase reflects both stock market and housing price gains. This measure has been setting records since Q4 2012.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> If divided evenly, the $99Template:Spacestrillion represents an average of $782,000 per household (for about 126.2 million households) or $302,000 per person. However, median household net worth (i.e., half of the families above and below this level) was $97,300 in 2016. The bottom 25% of families had a median net worth of zero, while the 25th to 50th percentile had a median net worth of $40,000.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Wealth inequality is more unequal than income inequality, with the top 1% households owning approximately 42% of the net worth in 2012, versus 24% in 1979.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> According to a September 2017 report by the Federal Reserve, wealth inequality is at record highs; the top 1% controlled 38.6% of the country's wealth in 2016.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Boston Consulting Group posited in June 2017 report that 1% of the Americans will control 70% of country's wealth by 2021.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The top 10% wealthiest possess 80% of all financial assets.<ref name="hurst34">Template:Cite book</ref> Wealth inequality in the U.S. is greater than in most developed countries other than Sweden.<ref name="GlobalWealthRpt">Template:Cite Q</ref> Inherited wealth may help explain why many Americans who have become rich may have had a "substantial head start".<ref name="Salon-20140324">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="ECO-20140318">Template:Cite news</ref> In September 2012, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, "over 60 percent" of the Forbes richest 400 Americans "grew up in substantial privilege".<ref name="OW-20120924">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Median household wealth fell 35% in the U.S., from $106,591 to $68,839 between 2005 and 2011, due to the Great Recession, but has since recovered as indicated above.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
About 30% of the entire world's millionaire population resides in the United States (Template:As of).<ref name="WorldWealthReport2010">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Economist Intelligence Unit estimated in 2008 that there were 16,600,000 millionaires in the U.S.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}. Volume 5: Evolving Fortunes. Barclays (2008). p. 7</ref> Furthermore, 34% of the world's billionaires are American (in 2011).<ref name="forbes.com" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Home ownershipEdit
The U.S. home ownership rate in Q1 2018 was 64.2%, well below the all-time peak of 69.2% set in Q4 2004 during a housing bubble. Millions of homes were lost to foreclosure during the Great Recession of 2007–2009, bringing the ownership rate to a trough of 62.9% in Q2 2016. The average ownership rate from 1965 to 2017 was 65.3%.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The average home in the United States has more than 700 square feet per person (65 square meters), which is 50%–100% more than the average in other high-income countries. Similarly, ownership rates of gadgets and amenities are relatively high compared to other countries.<ref name="Rector-Johnson">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Rector">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm (1999), The myths of rich and poor: why we're better off than we think. New York: Basic Books</ref>
It was reported by Pew Research Center in 2016 that, for the first time in 130 years, Americans aged 18 to 34 are more likely to live with their parents than in any other housing situation.<ref>Millennials aren't buying homes right now. What if they never do? The Guardian. May 27, 2016.</ref>
In one study by ATTOM Data Solutions, in 70% of the counties surveyed, homes are increasingly unaffordable for the average U.S. worker.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
As of 2018, the number of U.S. citizens residing in their vehicles increased in major cities with significantly higher than average housing costs such as Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
According to CNBC, the median sale price for a U.S. home in 2017 was US$199,200.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> By February 2023, the median U.S. home sale price grew to US$392,000 according to Statista.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The US has a country-wide housing shortage caused by insufficient housing construction (which declined severely after the 2008 Great Recession), and has caused rents and home prices to rise to increasingly unaffordable levels, with one estimate of the shortage being 3.8 million units in 2019, with this shortage having gotten worse during and since the pandemic.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
As of January 2024, in roughly half of cities in the U.S., workers need incomes of $100,000 or more in order to purchase a home as a result of rising housing prices and interest rate hikes.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Profits and wagesEdit
Real wages (wages adjusted for inflation) for most workers in the United States and median incomes have either declined or remained stagnant for the last twenty to forty years.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A 2020 microanalysis demonstrated that in the preceding four decades labor's share of national output declined while over the same period the profit share of the same output increased.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In 1970, wages represented more than 51% of the U.S. GDP and profits were less than 5%. But by 2013, wages had fallen to 44% of the economy, while profits had more than doubled to 11%.<ref name="DThompson">Template:Cite news</ref> Inflation-adjusted ("real") per capita disposable personal income rose steadily in the U.S. from 1945 to 2008, but has since remained generally level.<ref>"Real Disposable Personal Income: Per capita" Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 2013</ref><ref>"The Rich Are Enjoying The Recovery While Wages Fall For Everyone Else" ThinkProgress, January 25, 2013.</ref>
In 2005, median personal income for those over the age of 18 ranged from $3,317 for an unemployed, married Asian American female<ref name="US Census Bureau, females, 18 or older, unemployed, personal income, 2005">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> to $55,935 for a full-time, year-round employed Asian American male.<ref name="US Census Bureau, male, 18 or older, employed full-time year round, 2005">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> According to the U.S. Census men tended to have higher income than women while Asians and Whites earned more than African Americans and Hispanics. The overall median personal income for all individuals over the age of 18 was $24,062<ref name="US Census Bureau, 18+ age, 2005">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> ($32,140 for those age 25 or above) in the year 2005.<ref name="US Census Bureau, Personal income for all sexes, races in 2005">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
As a reference point, the minimum wage rate in 2009 and 2017 was $7.25 per hour or $15,080 for the 2080 hours in a typical work year. The minimum wage is a little more than the poverty level for a single person unit and about 50% of the poverty level for a family of four.
According to an October 2014 report by the Pew Research Center, real wages have been flat or falling for the last five decades for most U.S. workers, regardless of job growth.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Bloomberg reported in July 2018 that real GDP per capita has grown substantially since the Great Recession.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
An August 2017 survey by CareerBuilder found that eight out of ten U.S. workers live paycheck to paycheck. CareerBuilder spokesman Mike Erwin blamed "stagnant wages and the rising cost of everything from education to many consumer goods".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> According to a survey by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on the financial well-being of U.S. citizens, roughly half have trouble paying bills, and more than one third have faced hardships such as not being able to afford a place to live, running out of food, or not having enough money to pay for medical care.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> According to journalist and author Alissa Quart, the cost of living is rapidly outpacing the growth of salaries and wages, including those for traditionally secure professions such as teaching. She writes that "middle-class life is now 30% more expensive than it was 20 years ago."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In February 2019, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that seven million U.S. citizens are three months or more behind on their car payments, setting a record. This is considered a red flag by economists, that Americans are struggling to pay bills in spite of a low unemployment rate.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A May 2019 poll conducted by NPR found that among rural Americans, 40% struggle to pay for healthcare, food and housing, and 49% could not pay cash for a $1,000 emergency, and would instead choose to borrow in order to pay for such an unexpected emergency expense.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Some experts assert that the US has experienced a "two-tier recovery", which has benefitted 60% of the population, while the other 40% on the "lower tier" have been struggling to pay bills as the result of stagnant wages, increases in the cost of housing, education and healthcare, and growing debts.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
A 2021 study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that workers would have to make at least $24.90 an hour to be able to afford (meaning 30% of a person's income or less) renting a standard two-bedroom home or $20.40 for a one-bedroom home anywhere in the US. The former is 3.4 times higher than the current federal minimum wage.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The USCB reported in September 2023 that incomes fell last year by 2.3% from 2021, which is the third consecutive year incomes have declined.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
PovertyEdit
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Starting in the 1980s relative poverty rates have consistently exceeded those of other wealthy nations, though analyses using a common data set for comparisons tend to find that the U.S. has a lower absolute poverty rate by market income than most other wealthy nations.<ref name="National Research Council">Template:Cite book</ref> Extreme poverty in the United States, meaning households living on less than $2 per day before government benefits, doubled from 1996 levels to 1.5 million households in 2011, including 2.8 million children.<ref name=NatlPovertyCtr>"Extreme Poverty in the United States, 1996 to 2011" Template:Webarchive National Poverty Center, February 2012.</ref> In 2013, child poverty reached record high levels, with 16.7 million children living in food insecure households, about 35% more than 2007 levels.<ref name=WalkerBBC>Template:Cite news</ref> As of 2015, 44 percent of children in the United States live with low-income families.<ref>Report finds 44 percent of U.S. children live in low-income families. PBS Newshour. April 6, 2015.</ref>
In 2016, 12.7% of the U.S. population lived in poverty, down from 13.5% in 2015. The poverty rate rose from 12.5% in 2007 before the Great Recession to a 15.1% peak in 2010, before falling back to just above the 2007 level. In the 1959–1962 period, the poverty rate was over 20%, but declined to the all-time low of 11.1% in 1973 following the War on Poverty begun during the Lyndon Johnson presidency.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In June 2016, The IMF warned the United States that its high poverty rate needs to be tackled urgently.<ref>IMF warns the US over high poverty. BBC, June 22, 2016.</ref>
The population in extreme-poverty neighborhoods rose by one third from 2000 to 2009.<ref name="Concentrated Poverty">Kneebone, Elizabeth; Nadeau, Carey; Berube, Alan (November 3, 2011). "The Re-Emergence of Concentrated Poverty: Metropolitan Trends in the 2000s". Brookings Institution.</ref> People living in such neighborhoods tend to suffer from inadequate access to quality education; higher crime rates; higher rates of physical and psychological ailment; limited access to credit and wealth accumulation; higher prices for goods and services; and constrained access to job opportunities.<ref name="Concentrated Poverty" /> As of 2013, 44% of America's poor are considered to be in "deep poverty", with an income 50% or more below the government's official poverty line.<ref>Shah, Neil (October 11, 2013).U.S. Poverty Rate StabilizesTemplate:SndFor Some. The Wall Street Journal (New York).</ref>
According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's Annual Homeless Assessment Report, Template:As of there were around 771,480 homeless people in the United States on a given night, or about 23 of every 10,000 people.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Almost two thirds stayed in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program and the other third were living on the street, in an abandoned building, or another place not meant for human habitation. About 1.56 million people, or about 0.5% of the U.S. population, used an emergency shelter or a transitional housing program between October 1, 2008, and September 30, 2009.<ref name=HUDhomeless2009>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Around 44% of homeless people are employed.<ref>Employment and Homelessness Template:Webarchive. National Coalition for the Homeless, July 2009.</ref> Homelessness increased from 2016 to 2020, along with deaths among the homeless population.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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The United States has one of the least extensive social safety nets in the developed world, reducing both relative poverty and absolute poverty by considerably less than the mean for wealthy nations.<ref name="Sme">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Kevin Drum (September 26, 2013). We Can Reduce Poverty If We Want To. We Just Have To Want To. Mother Jones.</ref><ref>Gould, Elise and Wething, Hilary (July 24, 2012). "U.S. poverty rates higher, safety net weaker than in peer countries." Economic Policy Institute.</ref> Some experts posit that those in poverty live in conditions rivaling the developing world.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A May 2018 report by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights found that over five million people in the United States live "in 'Third World' conditions".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Poverty is the fourth leading risk factor for premature death annually, according to a 2023 study published in JAMA.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Over the last three decades the poor in America have been incarcerated at a much higher rate than their counterparts in other developed nations, with penal confinement being "commonplace for poor men of working age".<ref>Bruce Western. Poverty Politics and Crime Control in Europe and America. Contemporary Sociology Vol. 40, No. 3 (May 2011), pp. 283–86</ref> Some scholars contend that the shift to neoliberal social and economic policies starting in the late 1970s has expanded the penal state, retrenched the social welfare state, deregulated the economy and criminalized poverty, ultimately "transforming what it means to be poor in America".<ref>Stephen Haymes, Maria Vidal de Haymes and Reuben Miller (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Poverty in the United States, (London: Routledge, 2015), Template:ISBN, pp. 3, 346.</ref><ref>Loïc Wacquant, Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity Template:Webarchive, (Duke University Press, 2009), Template:ISBN, pp. 125–16, 312</ref><ref>Marie Gottschalk. Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. Princeton University Press, 2014. Template:ISBN p. 10</ref>
Sociologist Matthew Desmond writes in his 2023 book Poverty, by America that the US "offers some of the lowest wages in the industrialized world," which has "swelled the ranks of the working poor, most of whom are thirty-five or older."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Social scientist Mark Robert Rank asserts that the high rates of poverty in the U.S. can largely be explained as structural failures at the economic and political levels.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Health careEdit
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CoverageEdit
Template:Further The American system is a mix of public and private insurance. The government provides insurance coverage for approximately 53 million elderly via Medicare, 62 million lower-income persons via Medicaid, and 15 million military veterans via the Veteran's Administration. About 178 million employed by companies receive subsidized health insurance through their employer, while 52 million other persons directly purchase insurance either via the subsidized marketplace exchanges developed as part of the Affordable Care Act or directly from insurers. The private sector delivers healthcare services, with the exception of the Veteran's Administration, where doctors are employed by the government.<ref name="Census2016">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Multiple surveys indicate the number of uninsured fell between 2013 and 2016 due to expanded Medicaid eligibility and health insurance exchanges established due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as the "ACA" or "Obamacare". According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2012 there were 45.6 million people in the US (14.8% of the under-65 population) who were without health insurance. This figure fell by 18.3 million (40%) to 27.3 million (8.6% of the under-65 population) by 2016.<ref name="Census_HistTable">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
However, under President Trump these gains in healthcare coverage have begun to reverse. The Commonwealth Fund estimated in May 2018 that the number of uninsured increased by four million from early 2016 to early 2018. The rate of those uninsured increased from 12.7% in 2016 to 15.5%. The impact was greater among lower-income adults, who had a higher uninsured rate than higher-income adults. Regionally, the South and West had higher uninsured rates than the North and East. Further, those 18 states that have not expanded Medicaid had a higher uninsured rate than those that did.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
According to Physicians for a National Health Program, this lack of insurance causes roughly 48,000 unnecessary deaths per year.<ref name=uninsureddeaths>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The group's methodology has been criticized by John C. Goodman for not looking at cause of death or tracking insurance status changes over time, including the time of death.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> A 2009 study by former Clinton policy adviser Richard Kronick found no increased mortality from being uninsured after certain risk factors were controlled for.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
OutcomesEdit
The U.S. lags in overall healthcare performance but is a global leader in medical innovation. America solely developed or contributed significantly to nine of the top ten most important medical innovations since 1975 as ranked by a 2001 poll of physicians, while the EU and Switzerland together contributed to five. Since 1966, Americans have received more Nobel Prizes in Medicine than the rest of the world combined. From 1989 to 2002, four times more money was invested in private biotechnology companies in America than in Europe.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Of 17 high-income countries studied by the National Institutes of Health in 2013, the United States ranked at or near the top in obesity rate, frequency of automobile use and accidents, homicides, infant mortality rate, incidence of heart and lung disease, sexually transmitted infections, adolescent pregnancies, recreational drug or alcohol deaths, injuries, and rates of disability. Together, such lifestyle and societal factors place the U.S. at the bottom of that list for life expectancy. On average, a U.S. male can be expected to live almost four fewer years than those in the top-ranked country, though Americans who reach age 75 live longer than those who reach that age in peer nations.<ref name=nihbph>Template:Cite book</ref> One consumption choice causing several of the maladies described above are cigarettes. Americans smoked 258 billion cigarettes in 2016.<ref name="CDCTobaccoFree">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Cigarettes cost the United States $326Template:Spacesbillion each year in direct healthcare costs ($170Template:Spacesbillion) and lost productivity ($156Template:Spacesbillion).<ref name="CDCTobaccoFree" />
A comprehensive 2007 study by European doctors found the five-year cancer survival rate was significantly higher in the U.S. than in all 21 European nations studied, 66.3% for men versus the European mean of 47.3% and 62.9% versus 52.8% for women.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Americans undergo cancer screenings at significantly higher rates than people in other developed countries, and access MRI and CT scans at the highest rate of any OECD nation.<ref name=Atlas>Template:Cite book</ref> People in the U.S. diagnosed with high cholesterol or hypertension access pharmaceutical treatments at higher rates than those diagnosed in other developed nations, and are more likely to successfully control the conditions.<ref>Atlas 2011, pp. 205–07</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Diabetics are more likely to receive treatment and meet treatment targets in the U.S. than in Canada, England, or Scotland.<ref>Atlas 2011, pp. 150–56</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
According to a 2018 study of 2016 data by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the U.S. was ranked 27th in the world for healthcare and education, down from 6th in 1990.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
CostEdit
U.S. healthcare costs are considerably higher than other countries as a share of GDP, among other measures. According to the OECD, U.S. healthcare costs in 2015 were 16.9% GDP, over 5% GDP higher than the next most expensive OECD country.<ref name="OECD1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A gap of 5% GDP represents $1Template:Spacestrillion, about $3,000 per person or one-third higher relative to the next most expensive country.<ref name="CDC1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The high cost of health care in the United States is attributed variously to technological advance, administration costs, drug pricing, suppliers charging more for medical equipment, the receiving of more medical care than people in other countries, the high wages of doctors, government regulations, the impact of lawsuits, and third party payment systems insulating consumers from the full cost of treatments.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=Cutler>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The lowest prices for pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and payments to physicians are in government plans. Americans tend to receive more medical care than people do in other countries, which is a notable contributor to higher costs. In the United States, a person is more likely to receive open heart surgery after a heart attack than in other countries. Medicaid pays less than Medicare for many prescription drugs due to the fact Medicaid discounts are set by law, whereas Medicare prices are negotiated by private insurers and drug companies.<ref name=Cutler /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Government plans often pay less than overhead, resulting in healthcare providers shifting the cost to the privately insured through higher prices.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Composition of economic sectorsEdit
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The United States is the world's second-largest manufacturer, with a 2013 industrial output of US$2.4Template:Spacestrillion. Its manufacturing output is greater than of Germany, France, India, and Brazil combined.<ref name="imt">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Its main industries include financials, information technology, petroleum, steel, automobiles, construction machinery, aerospace, agricultural machinery, telecommunications, chemicals, electronics, food processing, consumer goods, lumber, mining and armaments.
The U.S. leads the world in airplane manufacturing,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:Full citation needed</ref> which represents a large portion of U.S. industrial output. American companies such as Boeing, Cessna (see: Textron), Lockheed Martin (see: Skunk Works), and General Dynamics produce a majority of the world's civilian and military aircraft in factories across the United States.
The manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy has experienced substantial job losses over the past several years.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In January 2004, the number of such jobs stood at 14.3 million, down by 3.0 million jobs (17.5%) since July 2000 and about 5.2 million since the historical peak in 1979. Employment in manufacturing was its lowest since July 1950.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The number of steel workers fell from 500,000 in 1980 to 224,000 in 2000.<ref>"Congressional Record V. 148, Pt. 4, April 11, 2002 to April 24, 2002". United States Government Printing Office.</ref>
The U.S. produces approximately 18% of the world's manufacturing output, a share that has declined as other nations developed competitive manufacturing industries.<ref name="greyhill">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The job loss during this continual volume growth is the result of multiple factors including increased productivity, trade, and secular economic trends.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In addition, growth in telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, aircraft, heavy machinery and other industries along with declines in low end, low skill industries such as clothing, toys, and other simple manufacturing have resulted in some U.S. jobs being more highly skilled and better paying. There has been much debate within the United States on whether the decline in manufacturing jobs are related to American unions, lower foreign wages, or both.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Pope_2012">Template:Cite news Part 2. Part 3.</ref><ref name="btb 22.01.2012">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Products include wheat, corn, other grains, fruits, vegetables, cotton; beef, pork, poultry, dairy products, forest products, and fish.
Energy, transportation, and telecommunicationsEdit
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TransportationEdit
RoadEdit
The U.S. economy is heavily dependent on road transport for moving people and goods. Personal transportation is dominated by automobiles, which operate on a network of four million miles (6.4 million km) of public roads,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> including one of the world's longest highway systems at 57,000 miles (91,700Template:Spaceskm).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The world's second-largest automobile market,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> the United States has the highest rate of per-capita vehicle ownership in the world, with 765 vehicles per 1,000 Americans.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> About 40% of personal vehicles are vans, SUVs, or light trucks.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
RailEdit
Mass transit accounts for 9% of total U.S. work trips.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Transport of goods by rail is extensive, though relatively low numbers of passengers (approximately 31 million annually) use intercity rail to travel, partially due to the low population density throughout much of the nation.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> However, ridership on Amtrak, the national intercity passenger rail system, grew by almost 37% between 2000 and 2010.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Also, light rail development has increased in recent years.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The state of California is currently constructing the nation's first high-speed rail system.
AirlineEdit
The civil airline industry is entirely privately owned and has been largely deregulated since 1978, while most major airports are publicly owned.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The three largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are U.S.-based; American Airlines is number one after its 2013 acquisition by U.S. Airways.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Of the world's thirty busiest passenger airports, twelve are in the United States, including the busiest, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
EnergyEdit
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The US is the second-largest energy consumer in total use.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The U.S. ranks seventh in energy consumption per capita after Canada and a number of other countries.<ref>World Per Capita Total Primary Energy Consumption,1980–2005 (MS Excel format)</ref><ref>World Resources Institute "Energy Consumption: Consumption per capita" (2001). Nations with higher per-capita consumption are: Qatar, Iceland, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Luxembourg and Canada. Except for Canada, these are small countries with a prominent energy-intensive industry such as oil refining or steelmaking.</ref> The majority of this energy is derived from fossil fuels: in 2005, it was estimated that 40% of the nation's energy came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 23% from natural gas. Nuclear power supplied 8.4% and renewable energy supplied 6.8%, which was mainly from hydroelectric dams although other renewables are included.<ref>US Dept. of Energy, "Annual Energy Report" (July 2006), Energy Flow diagram</ref>
American dependence on oil imports grew from 24% in 1970 to 65% by the end of 2005.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Transportation has the highest consumption rates, accounting for approximately 69% of the oil used in the United States in 2006,<ref name="btstable4-3">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and 55% of oil use worldwide as documented in the Hirsch report.
In 2013, the United States imported 2.808 billion barrels of crude oil, compared to 3.377 billion barrels in 2010.<ref>"U.S. Imports of Crude Oil". U.S. Census Bureau.</ref> While the U.S. is the largest importer of fuel, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2011 that the country was about to become a net fuel exporter for the first time in 62 years. The paper reported expectations that this would continue until 2020.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In fact, petroleum was the major export from the country in 2011.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
TelecommunicationsEdit
The Internet was developed in the U.S. and the country hosts many of the world's largest hubs.<ref>"IPTO – Information Processing Techniques Office" Template:Webarchive, The Living Internet, Bill Stewart (ed), January 2000.</ref>
International tradeEdit
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The United States is the world's second-largest trading nation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> There is a large amount of U.S. dollars in circulation all around the planet; about 60% of funds used in international trade are U.S. dollars. The dollar is also used as the standard unit of currency in international markets for commodities such as gold and petroleum.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, created one of the largest trade blocs in the world in 1994.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Since 1976, the U.S. has sustained merchandise trade deficits with other nations, and since 1982, current account deficits. The nation's long-standing surplus in its trade in services was maintained, however, and reached a record US$231Template:Spacesbillion in 2013.<ref name="Exports-Imports">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The U.S. trade deficit increased from $502Template:Spacesbillion in 2016 to $552Template:Spacesbillion in 2017, an increase of $50Template:Spacesbillion or 10%.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> During 2017, total imports were $2.90Template:Spacestrillion, while exports were $2.35Template:Spacestrillion. The net deficit in goods was $807Template:Spacesbillion, while the net surplus in services was $255Template:Spacesbillion.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Americas ten largest trading partners are China, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany, South Korea, United Kingdom, France, India and Taiwan.<ref name="auto" /> The goods trade deficit with China rose from $347Template:Spacesbillion in 2016 to $376Template:Spacesbillion in 2017, an increase of $30Template:Spacesbillion or 8%. In 2017, the U.S. had a goods trade deficit of $71Template:Spacesbillion with Mexico and $17Template:Spacesbillion with Canada.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
According to the KOF index of globalizationTemplate:Clarify and the globalization index by A.T. Kearney/Foreign Policy Magazine, the U.S. has a relatively high degree of globalization.Template:Citation needed U.S. workers send a third of all remittances in the world.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}{{subst:dead link}}</ref>
| Balance of trade 2014 (goods only)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | Euro area | Japan | Mexico | Pacific | Canada | Middle East | Latin America | Total by product | |
| Computer | −151.9 | 3.4 | −8.0 | −11.0 | −26.1 | 20.9 | 5.8 | 12.1 | −155.0 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Oil, gas, minerals | 1.9 | 6.4 | 2.4 | −20.8 | 1.1 | −79.8 | −45.1 | −15.9 | −149.7 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Transportation | 10.9 | −30.9 | −46.2 | −59.5 | −0.5 | −6.1 | 17.1 | 8.8 | −106.3 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Apparel | −56.3 | −4.9 | 0.6 | −4.2 | −6.3 | 2.5 | −0.3 | −1.1 | −69.9 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Electrical equipment | −35.9 | −2.4 | −4.0 | −8.5 | −3.3 | 10.0 | 1.8 | 2.0 | −40.4 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Misc. manufacturing | −35.3 | 4.9 | 2.7 | −2.8 | −1.4 | 5.8 | −1.5 | 1.8 | −25.8 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Furniture | −18.3 | −1.2 | 0.0 | −1.6 | −2.1 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.0 | −22.6 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Machinery | −19.9 | −27.0 | −18.8 | 3.9 | 7.6 | 18.1 | 4.5 | 9.1 | −22.4 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Primary metals | −3.1 | 3.1 | −1.8 | 1.0 | 1.9 | −8.9 | −0.9 | −10.4 | −19.1 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Fabricated metals | −17.9 | −5.9 | −3.5 | 2.8 | −4.3 | 7.3 | 1.2 | 1.9 | −18.5 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Plastics | −15.7 | −1.9 | −2.0 | 5.7 | −4.1 | 2.6 | −0.1 | 0.5 | −15.0 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Textile | −12.3 | −1.1 | −0.3 | 2.8 | −4.6 | 1.5 | −0.9 | 0.2 | −14.7 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Beverages, tobacco | 1.3 | −9.9 | 0.6 | −3.3 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 0.2 | −0.6 | −10.6 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Nonmetallic minerals | −6.1 | −1.9 | −0.4 | −1.2 | 0.1 | 1.9 | −0.5 | −0.8 | −8.9 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Paper | −2.7 | 1.2 | 1.1 | 4.3 | 1.2 | −9.8 | 0.9 | −1.9 | −5.8 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Chemical | −3.9 | −39.5 | −1.5 | 19.1 | 3.2 | 4.6 | −2.4 | 15.8 | −4.7 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Food | 0.7 | −3.6 | 6.1 | 4.9 | 0.9 | 0.1 | 1.4 | −1.1 | 9.5 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Agriculture | 17.8 | 6.2 | 7.3 | −3.0 | 5.7 | −0.8 | 2.8 | −6.5 | 29.5 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Petroleum | 0.6 | −1.2 | 0.1 | 16.6 | −2.0 | −0.1 | 0.6 | 18.3 | 32.9 {{safesubst:#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=|preview=Page using Template:Center with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | style }}
|
| Total by country/area | −346.1 | −106.1 | −65.6 | −54.9 | −33.0 | −29.0 | −15.1 | 32.3 | |
Financial positionEdit
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The U.S. public debt was $909Template:Spacesbillion in 1980, an amount equal to 33% of America's gross domestic product (GDP); by 1990, that number had more than tripled to $3.2Template:SpacestrillionTemplate:Snd56% of GDP.<ref>FY 2010 Budget Historical Tables. pp. 127–28.</ref> In 2001 the national debt was $5.7Template:Spacestrillion; however, the debt-to-GDP ratio remained at 1990 levels.<ref>"US spends its way to 28 Eiffel towers: made out of pure gold". The Times. March 17, 2006.</ref> Debt levels rose quickly in the following decade, and on January 28, 2010, the U.S. debt ceiling was raised to $14.3Template:Spacestrillion.<ref>"Senate backs increase in debt limit to $14.3Template:Spacestrillion". Reuters. January 28, 2010.</ref> Based on the 2010 United States federal budget, total national debt will grow to nearly 100% of GDP, versus a level of approximately 80% in early 2009.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The White House estimates that the government's tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700Template:Spacesbillion a year in 2019,<ref>"Debt has become America's life blood". Abc.net.au. December 15, 2009.</ref> up from $202Template:Spacesbillion in 2009.<ref>"Wave of Debt Payments Facing US Government". The New York Times. November 22, 2009.</ref>
U.S. household and non-profit net worth exceeded $100Template:Spacestrillion for the first time in Q1 2018; it has been setting records since Q4 2012.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The U.S. federal government or "national debt" was $21.1Template:Spacestrillion in May 2018, just over 100% GDP.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Using a subset of the national debt called "debt held by the public", U.S. debt was approximately 77% GDP in 2017. By this measure, the U.S. ranked 43rd highest among 2017 nations.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Debt held by the public rose considerably as a result of the Great Recession and its aftermath. It is expected to continue rising as the country ages towards 100% GDP by 2028.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In February 2024, the total federal government debt grew to $34.4 trillion after having grown by approximately $1 trillion in both of two separate 100-day periods since the previous June.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The U.S. Treasury statistics indicate that, at the end of 2006, non-US citizens and institutions held 44% of federal debt held by the public.<ref>"Analytical Perspectives of the FY 2008 Budget Template:Webarchive".</ref> Template:As of, China, holding $1.26Template:Spacestrillion in treasury bonds, is the largest foreign financier of the U.S. public debt.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The overall financial position of the United States as of 2014 includes $269.6Template:Spacestrillion of assets owned by households, businesses, and governments within its borders, representing more than 15.7 times the annual gross domestic product of the United States. Debts owed during this same period amounted to $145.8Template:Spacestrillion, about 8.5 times the annual gross domestic product.<ref name="2014Q1flowoffunds"> {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="2005to2013flowoffunds"> {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Since 2010, the U.S. Treasury has been obtaining negative real interest rates on government debt.<ref>Saint Louis Federal Reserve (2012) "5-Year Treasury Inflation-Indexed Security, Constant Maturity" FRED Economic Data chart from government debt auctions (the x-axis at y=0 represents the inflation rate over the life of the security)</ref> Such low rates, outpaced by the inflation rate, occur when the market believes that there are no alternatives with sufficiently low risk, or when popular institutional investments such as insurance companies, pensions, or bond, money market, and balanced mutual funds are required or choose to invest sufficiently large sums in Treasury securities to hedge against risk.<ref name="liquidation" /><ref>David Wessel (August 8, 2012) "When Interest Rates Turn Upside Down" The Wall Street Journal (full text Template:Webarchive)</ref> American economist Lawrence Summers argues that at such low rates, government debt borrowing saves taxpayer money, and improves creditworthiness.<ref>Lawrence Summers (June 3, 2012) "Breaking the negative feedback loop" Reuters</ref>
In the late 1940s through the early 1970s, the US and UK both reduced their debt burden by about 30% to 40% of GDP per decade by taking advantage of negative real interest rates, but there is no guarantee that government debt rates will continue to stay so low.<ref name="liquidation">Carmen M. Reinhart and M. Belen Sbrancia (March 2011) "The Liquidation of Government Debt" National Bureau of Economic Research working paper No. 16893</ref><ref>William H. Gross (May 2, 2011) "The Caine Mutiny (Part 2)" Template:Webarchive PIMCO Investment Outlook</ref> In January 2012, the U.S. Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association unanimously recommended that government debt be allowed to auction even lower, at negative absolute interest rates.<ref>U.S. Treasury (January 31, 2012) "Minutes of the Meeting of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association"</ref>
Currency and central bankEdit
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The United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States. The U.S. dollar is the currency most used in international transactions.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Several countries use it as their official currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency.<ref>Benjamin J. Cohen, The Future of Money, Princeton University Press, 2006, Template:ISBN; cf. "the dollar is the de facto currency in Cambodia", Charles Agar, Frommer's Vietnam, 2006, Template:ISBN, p. 17</ref>
The federal government attempts to use both monetary policy (control of the money supply through mechanisms such as changes in interest rates) and fiscal policy (taxes and spending) to maintain low inflation, high economic growth, and low unemployment. An independent central bank, known as the Federal Reserve, was formed in 1913 to provide a stable currency and monetary policy. The U.S. dollar has been regarded as one of the more stable currencies in the world and many nations back their own currency with U.S. dollar reserves.<ref name="federalreserve.gov" /><ref name="Benjamin J. Cohen 2006, p. 17" />
The U.S. dollar has maintained its position as the world's primary reserve currency, although it is gradually being challenged in that role.<ref>"Biggest game in town". BBC News. January 29, 2009.</ref> Almost two thirds of currency reserves held around the world are held in U.S. dollars, compared to around 25% for the next most popular currency, the euro.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Rising U.S. national debt and quantitative easing has caused some to predict that the U.S. dollar will lose its status as the world's reserve currency; however, these predictions have not yet come to fruition.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Climate changeEdit
CorruptionEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} In 2019, the United States was ranked 23rd on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index with a score of 69 out of 100.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> This is a decrease from its score in 2018 which was 71 out of 100.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Law and governmentEdit
The United States ranked 4th in the ease of doing business index in 2012, 18th in the Economic Freedom of the World index by the Fraser Institute in 2012, 10th in the Index of Economic Freedom by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation in 2012, 15th in the 2014 Global Enabling Trade Report,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and 3rd on the Global Competitiveness Report.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
According to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, released by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation, the U.S. has dropped out of the top ten most economically free countries. The U.S. has been on a steady seven-year economic freedom decline and is the only country to do so.<ref name="US economic freedom">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The index measures each nation's commitment to free enterprise on a scale of 0 to 100. Countries losing economic freedom and receiving low index scores are at risk of economic stagnation, high unemployment rates, and diminishing social conditions.<ref name="wsj miller">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Index of economic freedom">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The 2014 Index of Economic Freedom gave the United States a score of 75.5 and is listed as the twelfth-freest economy in world. It dropped two rankings and its score is half a point lower than in 2013.<ref name="US economic freedom" />
Economist Alan S. Blinder criticizes democratic government regulation of the U.S. economy as too short-sighted (targeting either the next election or the next news cycle rather than making difficult choices that favor long-term benefits despite short-term pain) and favoring policies that sound good and avoiding those that sound bad, regardless of merit when examined rigorously by economists.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
RegulationsEdit
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The U.S. federal government regulates private enterprise in numerous ways. Regulation falls into two general categories.
Some efforts seek, either directly or indirectly, to control prices. Traditionally, the government has sought to create state-regulated monopolies such as electric utilities while allowing prices in the level that would ensure them normal profits. At times, the government has extended economic control to other kinds of industries as well. In the years following the Great Depression, it devised a complex system to stabilize prices for agricultural goods, which tend to fluctuate wildly in response to rapidly changing supply and demand. A number of other industries—trucking and, later, airlines—successfully sought regulation themselves to limit what they considered as harmful price-cutting, a process called regulatory capture.<ref name="ReferenceA">Regulation and Control in the U.S. Economy: About.com</ref>
Another form of economic regulation, antitrust law, seeks to strengthen market forces so that direct regulation is unnecessary. The government—and, sometimes, private parties—have used antitrust law to prohibit practices or mergers that would unduly limit competition.<ref name="ReferenceA" />
Bank regulation in the United States is highly fragmented compared to other G10 countries where most countries have only one bank regulator. In the U.S., banking is regulated at both the federal and state level. The U.S. also has one of the most highly regulated banking environments in the world; however, many of the regulations are not soundness related, but are instead focused on privacy, disclosure, fraud prevention, anti-money laundering, anti-terrorism, anti-usury lending, and promoting lending to lower-income segments.
Since the 1970s, government has also exercised control over private companies to achieve social goals, such as improving the public's health and safety or maintaining a healthy environment. For example, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration provides and enforces standards for workplace safety, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency provides standards and regulations to maintain air, water, and land resources. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates what drugs may reach the market, and also provides standards of disclosure for food products.<ref name="ReferenceA" />
American attitudes about regulation changed substantially during the final three decades of the 20th century. Beginning in the 1970s, policy makers grew increasingly convinced that economic regulation protected companies at the expense of consumers in industries such as airlines and trucking. At the same time, technological changes spawned new competitors in some industries, such as telecommunications, that once were considered natural monopolies. Both developments led to a succession of laws easing regulation.<ref name="ReferenceA" />
While leaders of America's two most influential political parties generally favored economic deregulation during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, there was less agreement concerning regulations designed to achieve social goals. Social regulation had assumed growing importance in the years following the Depression and World War II, and again in the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, the government relaxed labor, consumer and environmental rules based on the idea that such regulation interfered with free enterprise, increased the costs of doing business, and thus contributed to inflation. The response to such changes is mixed; many Americans continued to voice concerns about specific events or trends, prompting the government to issue new regulations in some areas, including environmental protection.<ref name="ReferenceA" />
Where legislative channels have been unresponsive, some citizens have turned to the courts to address social issues more quickly. For instance, in the 1990s, individuals, and eventually the government itself, sued tobacco companies over the health risks of cigarette smoking. The 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement provided states with long-term payments to cover medical costs to treat smoking-related illnesses.<ref name="ReferenceA" />
Between 2000 and 2008, economic regulation in the United States saw the most rapid expansion since the early 1970s. The number of new pages in the Federal Registry, a proxy for economic regulation, rose from 64,438 new pages in 2001 to 78,090 in new pages in 2007, a record amount of regulation. Economically significant regulations, defined as regulations which cost more than $100Template:Spacesmillion a year, increased by 70%. Spending on regulation increased by 62% from $26.4Template:Spacesbillion to $42.7Template:Spacesbillion.<ref name="bushregulation">Template:Cite magazine</ref>
TaxationEdit
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Taxation in the United States is a complex system which may involve payment to at least four different levels of government and many methods of taxation. Taxes are levied by the federal government, by the state governments, and often by local governments, which may include counties, municipalities, township, school districts, and other special-purpose districts, which include fire, utility, and transit districts.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Forms of taxation include taxes on income, property, sales, imports, payroll, estates and gifts, as well as various fees. When taxation by all government levels taken into consideration, the total taxation as percentage of GDP was approximately a quarter of GDP in 2011.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Share of black market in the U.S. economy is very low compared to other countries.<ref name="Trans-Atlantic Comparisons 3-2">Template:Cite news</ref>
Although a federal wealth tax is prohibited by the United States Constitution unless the receipts are distributed to the States by their populations, state and local government property tax amount to a wealth tax on real estate, and because capital gains are taxed on nominal instead of inflation-adjusted profits, the capital gains tax amounts to a wealth tax on the inflation rate.<ref name=YglesiasWealth>Template:Cite news</ref>
U.S. taxation is generally progressive, especially at the federal level, and is among the most progressive in the developed world.<ref name = "CBO 2010">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Dylan47>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> There is debate over whether taxes should be more or less progressive.<ref name=YglesiasWealth /><ref name=BairParity>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
According to the Tax Justice Network in 2022, the US fuels more global financial secrecy than Switzerland, Cayman and Bermuda combined.<ref name="SWI swissinfo.ch 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
ExpenditureEdit
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The United States public-sector spending amounts to about 38% of GDP (federal is around 21%, state and local the remainder).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Each level of government provides many direct services. The federal government, for example, is responsible for national defense, research that often leads to the development of new products, conducts space exploration, and runs numerous programs designed to help workers develop workplace skills and find jobs (including higher education). Government spending has a significant effect on local and regional economies, and on the overall pace of economic activity.
State governments, meanwhile, are responsible for the construction and maintenance of most highways. State, county, or city governments play the leading role in financing and operating public schools. Local governments are primarily responsible for police and fire protection. In 2016, U.S. state and local governments owed $3Template:Spacestrillion and have another $5Template:Spacestrillion in unfunded liabilities.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The welfare system in the United States began in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, with the passage of the New Deal. The welfare system was later expanded in the 1960s through Great Society legislation, which included Medicare, Medicaid, the Older Americans Act and federal education funding.
Overall, federal, state, and local spending accounted for almost 28% of gross domestic product in 1998.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Federal budget and debtEdit
Template:Further During FY2017, the federal government spent $3.98Template:Spacestrillion on a budget or cash basis, up $128Template:Spacesbillion or 3.3% vs. FY2016 spending of $3.85Template:Spacestrillion. Major categories of FY 2017 spending included: Healthcare such as Medicare and Medicaid ($1,077B or 27% of spending), Social Security ($939B or 24%), non-defense discretionary spending used to run federal Departments and Agencies ($610B or 15%), Defense Department ($590B or 15%), and interest ($263B or 7%).<ref name="CBO_BOE2018" />
During FY2017, the federal government collected approximately $3.32Template:Spacestrillion in tax revenue, up $48Template:Spacesbillion or 1.5% versus FY2016. Primary receipt categories included individual income taxes ($1,587Template:Spacesbillion or 48% of total receipts), Social Security/Social Insurance taxes ($1,162Template:Spacesbillion or 35%), and corporate taxes ($297Template:Spacesbillion or 9%). Other revenue types included excise, estate and gift taxes. FY 2017 revenues were 17.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), versus 17.7% in FY 2016. Tax revenues averaged approximately 17.4% GDP over the 1980–2017 period.<ref name="CBO_BOE2018" />
The federal budget deficit (i.e., expenses greater than revenues) was $665Template:Spacesbillion in FY2017, versus $585Template:Spacesbillion in 2016, an increase of $80Template:Spacesbillion or 14%. The budget deficit was 3.5% GDP in 2017, versus 3.2% GDP in 2016. The budget deficit is forecast to rise to $804Template:Spacesbillion in FY 2018, due significantly to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and other spending bills. An aging country and healthcare inflation are other drivers of deficits and debt over the long-run.<ref name="CBO_BOE2018" />
Debt held by the public, a measure of national debt, was approximately $14.7Template:Spacestrillion or 77% of GDP in 2017, ranked the 43rd highest out of 207 countries.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> This debt, as a percent of GDP, is roughly equivalent to those of many western European nations.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Business cultureEdit
A central feature of the U.S. economy is the economic freedom afforded to the private sector by allowing the private sector to make the majority of economic decisions in determining the direction and scale of what the U.S. economy produces. This is enhanced by relatively low levels of regulation and government involvement,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> as well as a court system that generally protects property rights and enforces contracts. Today, the United States is home to 29.6 million small businesses, thirty percent of the world's millionaires, forty percent of the world's billionaires, and 139 of the world's 500 largest companies.<ref name="sba.gov">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="forbes.com">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Global 500 2010: Countries">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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From its emergence as an independent nation, the United States has encouraged science and innovation. In the early 20th century, the research developed through informal cooperation between U.S. industry and academia grew rapidly and by the late 1930s exceeded the size of that taking place in Britain (although the quality of U.S. research was not yet on par with British and German research at the time). After World War II, federal spending on defense R&D and antitrust policy played a significant role in U.S. innovation.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The United States is rich in mineral resources and fertile farm soil, and it is fortunate to have a moderate climate. It also has extensive coastlines on both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as on the Gulf of Mexico. Rivers flow from far within the continent and the Great Lakes (the five large inland lakes along the Canadian border) provide additional shipping access. These extensive waterways have helped shape the country's economic growth over the years and helped bind America's fifty individual states together in a single economic unit.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The number of workers and, more importantly, their productivity help determine the health of the U.S. economy. Consumer spending in the U.S. rose to about 62% of GDP in 1960, where it stayed until about 1981, and has since risen to 71% in 2013.<ref name=consumerecon /> Throughout its history, the United States has experienced steady growth in the labor force, a phenomenon that is both cause and effect of almost constant economic expansion. Until shortly after World War I, most workers were immigrants from Europe, their immediate descendants, or African Americans who were mostly slaves taken from Africa, or their descendants.<ref>"Trends in International Migration 2002: Continuous Reporting System on Migration". Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (2003). OECD Publishing. p. 280. Template:ISBN</ref>
Demographic shiftEdit
Template:See also Beginning in the late 20th century, many Latin Americans immigrated, followed by large numbers of Asians after the removal of nation-origin based immigration quotas.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The promise of high wages brings many highly skilled workers from around the world to the United States, as well as millions of illegal immigrants seeking work in the informal economy. More than 13 million people officially entered the United States during the 1990s alone.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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Labor mobility has also been important to the capacity of the American economy to adapt to changing conditions. When immigrants flooded labor markets on the East Coast, many workers moved inland, often to farmland waiting to be tilled. Similarly, economic opportunities in industrial, northern cities attracted black Americans from southern farms in the first half of the 20th century, in what was known as the Great Migration.
In the United States, the corporation has emerged as an association of owners, known as stockholders, who form a business enterprise governed by a complex set of rules and customs. Brought on by the process of mass production, corporations, such as General Electric, have been instrumental in shaping the United States. Today in the era of globalization, American investors and corporations have influence all over the world. The American government is also included among the major investors in the American economy. Government investments have been directed towards public works of scale (such as from the Hoover Dam), military-industrial contracts, and the financial industry.
AgingEdit
The U.S. population is aging, which has significant economic implications for GDP growth, productivity, innovation, inequality, and national debt, according to several studies. The average worker in 2019 was aged 42, vs. 38 in 2000. By 2030, about 59% of adults over 16 will be in the labor force, vs. 62% in 2015. One study estimated that aging since 2000 has reduced productivity between 0.25% and 0.7% per year. Since GDP growth is a function of productivity (output per worker) and the number of workers, both trends slow the GDP growth rate. Older workers save more, which pushes interests rates down, offsetting some of the GDP growth reduction but reducing the Federal Reserve's ability to address a recession by lowering interest rates. Means of addressing the aging trend include immigration (which theoretically brings in younger workers) and higher fertility rates, which can be encouraged by incentives to have more children (e.g., tax breaks, subsidies, and more generous paid leave).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in May 2019 that mandatory spending (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) will continue growing relative to the size of the economy (GDP) as the population ages. The population aged 65 or older is projected to rise by one-third from 2019–2029. Mandatory program spending (outlays) in 2019 were 12.7% of GDP and are projected to average 14.4% GDP from 2025–2029.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
EntrepreneurshipEdit
The United States has been a leader in technological innovation since the late 19th century and scientific research since the mid-20th century. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison's laboratory developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable movie camera. Edison's company would also pioneer (direct current based) electric power delivery and market it around the world, followed on by companies such as Westinghouse Electric Corporation which would rapidly develop alternating current power delivery. In the early 20th century, the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford popularized the assembly line. The Wright brothers, in 1903, made the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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American society highly emphasizes entrepreneurship and business. Entrepreneurship is the act of being an entrepreneur, which can be defined as "one who undertakes innovations, finance and business acumen in an effort to transform innovations into economic goods". This may result in new organizations or may be part of revitalizing mature organizations in response to a perceived opportunity.<ref name="ReferenceB">Shane, Scott "A General Theory of Entrepreneurship: the Individual-Opportunity Nexus", Edward Elgar</ref> American entrepreneurs are even engaged in public services delivery through public-private partnerships.
The most obvious form of entrepreneurship refers to the process and engagement of starting new businesses (referred to as startup companies); however, in recent years, the term has been extended to include social and political forms of entrepreneurial activity. When entrepreneurship is describing activities within a firm or large organization it is referred to as intra-preneurship and may include corporate venturing, when large entities spin-off organizations.<ref name="ReferenceB" />
According to Paul Reynolds, entrepreneurship scholar and creator of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, "by the time they reach their retirement years, half of all working men in the United States probably have a period of self-employment of one or more years; one in four may have engaged in self-employment for six or more years. Participating in a new business creation is a common activity among U.S. workers over the course of their careers."<ref>Reynolds, Paul D. "Entrepreneurship in the United States", Springer, 2007, Template:ISBN</ref> And in recent years, business creation has been documented by scholars such as David Audretsch to be a major driver of economic growth in both the United States and Western Europe.Template:Citation needed
Venture capital investmentEdit
Venture capital, as an industry, originated in the United States, which it still dominates.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> According to the National Venture Capital Association 11% of private sector jobs come from venture capital backed companies and venture capital backed revenue accounts for 21% of U.S. GDP.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Total U.S. investment in venture capital amounted to $48.3Template:Spacesbillion in 2014, for 4,356 deals. This represented "an increase of 61% in dollars and a 4% increase in deals over the prior year", reported the National Venture Capital Association. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that venture capital investment in the United States had fully recovered by 2014 to pre-recession levels. The National Venture Capital Association has reported that, in 2014, venture capital investment in the life sciences was at its highest level since 2008: in biotechnology, $6.0Template:Spacesbillion was invested in 470 deals and, in life sciences overall, $8.6Template:Spacesbillion in 789 deals (including biotechnology and medical devices). Two thirds (68%) of the investment in biotechnology went to first-time/early-stage development deals and the remainder to the expansion stage of development (14%), seed-stage companies (11%) and late-stage companies (7%). However, it was the software industry which invested in the greatest number of deals overall: 1,799, for an investment of $19.8Template:Spacesbillion. Second came internet-specific companies, garnering US$11.9Template:Spacesbillion in investment through 1,005 deals. Many of these companies are based in the state of California, which alone concentrates 28% of U.S. research.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>
Some new American businesses raise investments from angel investors (venture capitalists). In 2010 healthcare/medical accounted for the largest share of angel investments, with 30% of total angel investments (vs. 17% in 2009), followed by software (16% vs. 19% in 2007), biotech (15% vs. 8% in 2009), industrial/energy (8% vs. 17% in 2009), retail (5% vs. 8% in 2009) and IT services (5%).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:Clarify
Americans are "venturesome consumers" who are unusually willing to try new products of all sorts, and to pester manufacturers to improve their products.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Mergers and acquisitionsEdit
Since 1985 there have been three major waves of M&A in the U.S. (see graph "Mergers and Acquisitions in the U.S. since 1985"). 2017 has been the most active year in terms of number of deals (12,914), whereas 2015 cumulated to the biggest overall value of deals ($24Template:Spacesbillion).
The biggest merger deal in U.S. history was the acquisition of Time Warner by America Online Inc. in 2000, where the bid was over $164Template:Spacesbillion. Since 2000 acquisitions of U.S. companies by Chinese investors increased by 368%. The other way round—U.S. companies acquiring Chinese Companies—showed a decrease of 25%, with a short upwards trend until 2007.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Research and developmentEdit
The U.S. invests more funds in research and development (R&D) in absolute terms than the other G7 nations combined: 17.2% more in 2012. Since 2000, gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) in the U.S. has increased by 31.2%, enabling it to maintain its share of GERD among the G7 nations at 54.0% (54.2% in 2000).<ref name=":0" />
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Impact of recession on research spendingEdit
Generally speaking, U.S. investment in R&D rose with the economy in the first years of the century before receding slightly during the economic recession then rising again as growth resumed. At its peak in 2009, GERD amounted to US$406Template:Spacesbillion (2.82% of GDP). Despite the recession, it was still at 2.79% in 2012 and will slide only marginally to 2.73% in 2013, according to provisional data, and should remain at a similar level in 2014.<ref name=":0" />
The federal government is the primary funder of basic research, at 52.6% in 2012; state governments, universities and other non-profits funded 26%. Experimental development, on the other hand, is primarily funded by industry: 76.4% to the federal government's 22.1% in 2012.<ref name=":0" />
While U.S. investment in R&D is high, it failed to reach President Obama's target of 3% of GDP by the end of his presidency in 2016. Between 2009 and 2012, the United States' world share of research expenditure receded slightly from 30.5% to 28.1%. Several countries now devote more than 4% of GDP to R&D (Israel, Japan and the Republic of Korea) and others plan to raise their own GERD/GDP ratio to 4% by 2020 (Finland and Sweden).<ref name=":0" />
Business spending on researchEdit
Business enterprises contributed 59.1 % of U.S. GERD in 2012, down from 69.0 % in 2000. Private non-profits and foreign entities each contribute a small fraction of total R&D, 3.3% and 3.8%, respectively.<ref name=":0" />
The United States has historically been a leader in business R&D and innovation. The economic recession of 2008–2009 has had a lasting impact, however. While the major performers of R&D largely maintained their commitments, the pain of the U.S. recession was felt mainly by small businesses and start-ups. Statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau showed that, in 2008, the number of business 'deaths' began overtaking the number of business 'births' and that the trend continued at least through 2012. From 2003 to 2008, business research spending had followed a generally upward trajectory. In 2009, the curve inverted, as expenditure fell by 4% over the previous year then again in 2010, albeit by 1–2% this time. Companies in high-opportunity industries like health care cut back less than those in more mature industries, such as fossil fuels. The largest cutbacks in R&D spending were in agriculture production: −3.5% compared to the average R&D to net sales ratio. The chemicals and allied products industry and electronic equipment industry, on the other hand, showed R&D to net sales ratios that were 3.8% and 4.8% higher than average. Although the amount of R&D spending increased in 2011, it was still below the level of 2008 expenditure. By 2012, the growth rate of business-funded R&D had recovered. Whether this continues will be contingent on the pursuit of economic recovery and growth, levels of federal research funding and the general business climate.<ref name=":0" />
Research spending at the state levelEdit
Template:See also The level of research spending varies considerably from one state to another. Six states (New Mexico, Maryland, Massachusetts, Washington, California and Michigan) each devoted 3.9% or more of their GDP to R&D in 2010, together contributing 42% of national research expenditure. In 2010, more than one quarter of R&D was concentrated in California (28.1%), ahead of Massachusetts (5.7%), New Jersey (5.6%), Washington State (5.5%), Michigan (5.4%), Texas (5.2%), Illinois (4.8%), New York (3.6%) and Pennsylvania (3.5%). Seven states (Arkansas, Nevada, Oklahoma, Louisiana, South Dakota and Wyoming) devoted less than 0.8% of GDP to R&D.<ref name=":0" />
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California is home to Silicon Valley, the name given to the area hosting the leading corporations and start-ups in information technology. This state also hosts dynamic biotechnology clusters in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego. The main biotechnology clusters outside California are the cities of Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts, Maryland, suburban Washington, DC, New York, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Chicago. California supplies 13.7% of all jobs in science and engineering across the country, more than any other state. Some 5.7% of Californians are employed in these fields. This high share reflects a potent combination of academic excellence and a strong business focus on R&D: the prestigious Stanford University and University of California rub shoulders with Silicon Valley, for instance. In much the same way, Route 128 around Boston in the state of Massachusetts is not only home to numerous high-tech firms and corporations but also hosts the renowned Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<ref name=":0" />
New Mexico's high research intensity can be explained by the fact that it hosts the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Maryland's position may reflect the concentration of federally funded research institutions there. Washington State has a high concentration of high-tech firms like Microsoft, Amazon and Boeing and the engineering functions of most automobile manufacturers are located in the state of Michigan.<ref name=":0" />
Research spending by multinational corporationsEdit
The federal government and most of the 50 states that make up the United States offer tax credits to particular industries and companies to encourage them to engage in research and development (R&D). Congress usually renews a tax credit every few years. According to a survey by The Wall Street Journal in 2012, companies do not factor in these credits when making decisions about investing in R&D, since they cannot rely on these credits being renewed.<ref name=":0" />
In 2014, four U.S. multinational corporations figured in the Top 50 for the volume of expenditure on R&D: Microsoft, Intel, Johnson & Johnson and Google. Several have figured in the Top 20 for at least ten years: Intel, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and IBM. Google was included in this table for the first time in 2013.<ref name=":0" />
Global top 50 companies by R&D volume and intensity, 2014 * R&D intensity is defined as R&D expenditure divided by net sales. ** Although incorporated in the Netherlands, Airbus's principal manufacturing facilities are located in France, Germany, Spain and the UK. Source: UNESCO Science Report: towards 2030 (2015), Table 9.3, based on Hernández et al. (2014) EU R&D Scoreboard: the 2014 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard. European Commission: Brussels, Table 2.2.
Exports of high-tech goods and patentsEdit
Until 2010, the United States was a net exporter of pharmaceuticals but, since 2011, it has become a net importer of these goods.
The United States is a post-industrial country. Imports of high-tech products far exceed exports. However, the United States' technologically skilled workforce produces a large volume of patents and can still profit from the license or sale of these patents. Within the United States' scientific industries active in research, 9.1% of products and services are concerned with the licensing of intellectual property rights.<ref name=":0" />
When it comes to trade in intellectual property, the United States remains unrivalled. Income from royalties and licensing amounted to $129.2Template:Spacesbillion in 2013, the highest in the world. Japan comes a distant second, with receipts of $31.6Template:Spacesbillion in 2013. The United States' payments for use of intellectual property amounted to $39.0Template:Spacesbillion in 2013, exceeded only by Ireland ($46.4Template:Spacesbillion).<ref name=":0" />
Notable companies and marketsEdit
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America's largest companies are ranked every year by revenue in the Fortune 500. Between 2000 and 2022's edition of the list, the top spot on the Fortune 500 was occupied by either the auto manufacturer General Motors (GM), the oil and gas giant ExxonMobil, or the retailer Walmart.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The US is also home of many of the world's largest companies by market capitalization; Template:As of, the largest American companies by market cap are Apple, Microsoft, Google (through holding company Alphabet), Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, Tesla, Nvidia, Visa, ExxonMobil, and Meta Platforms.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Moreover, many of these companies are the most valuable brands, with many of the largest companies by revenue and market cap on the annual ranking of most valuable brands by Forbes being joined by Coca-Cola, The Walt Disney Company, and McDonald's.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Some industries within America are defined by a few major companies, often deriving terms such as "Big Three" or "Big Four". Examples of this phenomenon include the Big Three credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion), the Big Three automobile makers (Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis), the Big Four accounting firms (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PwC), and the Big Four communications carriers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile/Sprint, and Dish Network).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The American energy industry is among the largest and consists of large companies in oil, natural gas, coal, and renewable energy sources. America's largest energy companies by market are in oil and gas, with ExxonMobil being joined by Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Schlumberger; British oil companies BP and Shell also have significant presence in the United States and trade on both the London Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange. Many large American petroleum companies, as well as BP, can trace some origin back to Standard Oil, a former monopoly run by John D. Rockefeller. In coal, the $30 billion industry is dominated by Peabody Energy, which is the largest coal company in the world with almost $23 billion in revenue for 2021. Much of the nation's coal mining occurs in Wyoming and Appalachian states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky.<ref name=":1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} Number of companies data taken from the "Country" filter.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
A 2012 Deloitte report published in STORES magazine indicated that of the world's top 250 largest retailers by retail sales revenue in fiscal year 2010, 32% of those retailers were based in the United States, and those 32% accounted for 41% of the total retail sales revenue of the top 250.<ref>Deloitte, Switching Channels: Global Powers of Retailing 2012, STORES, January 2012, G20.</ref>
America is the foremost country in the world when it comes to semiconductor production. In 2011, half of the world's 20 largest semiconductor manufacturers by sales were based in America. More recently, Congress under the presidency of Joe Biden passed a bipartisan bill, the CHIPS and Science Act, which bolstered semiconductor production. Some of America's largest semiconductor firms and chip companies are Broadcom, Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Many of the United States' largest firms by market cap are technology companies. These companies are dominated by the Big Five tech giants (Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta), though numerous software firms also dominate the American technology industry. These firms range from hardware manufacturers like Dell Technologies, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Cisco, to software and computing infrastructure programmers like Oracle, Salesforce, Adobe, and Intuit.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In film, American producers create nearly all of the world's highest-grossing films. Many of the world's best-selling music artists are based in the United States. Some of America's largest media companies are The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, Comcast, Paramount Global, and Fox.
FinanceEdit
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Measured by value of its listed companies' securities, the New York Stock Exchange is more than three times larger than any other stock exchange in the world.<ref name="world-exchanges.org">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> As of October 2008, the combined capitalization of all domestic NYSE listed companies was US$10.1Template:Spacestrillion.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> NASDAQ is another American stock exchange and the world's third-largest exchange after the New York Stock Exchange and Japan's Tokyo Stock Exchange. However, NASDAQ's trade value is larger than Japan's TSE.<ref name="world-exchanges.org" /> NASDAQ is the largest electronic screen-based equity securities trading market in the U.S. With approximately 3,800 companies and corporations, it has more trading volume per hour than any other stock exchange.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Because of the influential role that the U.S. stock market plays in international finance, a New York University study in late 2014 interprets that in the short run, stocks that affect the willingness to bear risk independently of macroeconomic fundamentals explain most of the variation in the U.S. stock market. In the long run, the U.S. stock market is profoundly affected by shocks that reallocate the rewards of a given level of production between workers and shareholders. Productivity shocks, however, play a small role in historical stock market fluctuations at all horizons in the U.S. stock market.<ref>Origins of Stock Market Fluctuations Template:Webarchive. New York University, December 16, 2014.</ref>
The U.S. finance industry comprised only 10% of total non-farm business profits in 1947, but it grew to 50% by 2010. Over the same period, finance industry income as a proportion of GDP rose from 2.5% to 7.5%, and the finance industry's proportion of all corporate income rose from 10% to 20%. The mean earnings per employee hour in finance relative to all other sectors has closely mirrored the share of total U.S. income earned by the top 1% income earners since 1930. The mean salary in New York City's finance industry rose from $80,000 in 1981 to $360,000 in 2011, while average New York City salaries rose from $40,000 to $70,000. In 1988, there were about 12,500 U.S. banks with less than $300Template:Spacesmillion in deposits, and about 900 with more deposits, but by 2012, there were only 4,200 banks with less than $300Template:Spacesmillion in deposits in the U.S., and over 1,800 with more.
Top ten U.S. banks by assets<ref name="money.msn.com">Stock quotes, investing & personal finance, news – MSN Money Template:Webarchive. Money.msn.com (December 31, 1999).</ref><ref name="secdatabase.com">secdatabase.com</ref><ref>Investor Relations. Goldman Sachs.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
| 1 | JP Morgan Chase |
| 2 | Bank of America |
| 3 | Citigroup |
| 4 | Wells Fargo |
| 5 | Goldman Sachs |
| 6 | Morgan Stanley |
| 7 | U.S. Bancorp |
| 8 | Bank of NY Mellon |
| 9 | HSBC North American Holdings |
| 10 | Capital One Financial |
A 2012 International Monetary Fund study concluded that the U.S. financial sector has grown so large that it is slowing economic growth. New York University economist Thomas Philippon supported those findings, estimating that the U.S. spends $300Template:Spacesbillion too much on financial services per year, and that the sector needs to shrink by 20%. Harvard University and University of Chicago economists agreed, calculating in 2014 that workers in research and development add $5 to the GDP for each dollar they earn, but finance industry workers cause the GDP to shrink by $0.60 for every dollar they are paid.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A study by the Bank for International Settlements reached similar conclusions, saying the finance industry impedes economic growth and research and development based industries.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Historical statisticsEdit
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List of state and territory economiesEdit
State and federal district economiesEdit
Territory economiesEdit
- Economy of American Samoa
- Economy of Guam
- Economy of the Northern Mariana Islands
- Economy of Puerto Rico
- Economy of the United States Virgin Islands
See alsoEdit
- Bretton Woods system
- Energy policy of the United States
- Financial position of the United States
- Historical Statistics of the United States
- Job creation index
- Labor unions in the United States
- Unemployment insurance in the United States
- List of industry trade groups in the United States
- Washington Consensus
- World oil market chronology from 2003
- Work–life balance
- Work–life balance in the United States
- Work–family balance in the United States
ReferencesEdit
CitationsEdit
SourcesEdit
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