Question

For the United States, find information on (at least) the past 10 years of real GDP per capita and growth. Submit a few sentences or bullet points describing that economy's growth path and sources explaining how and why the country grew or contracted as it did.

Answer 1

The below table provides data for United States on real GDP Per Capita and its year on year growth for past 12 years.

Year	Real GDP Per Capita	Year on Year Growth Rate
2007	$51,540	0.51%
2008	$51,637	0.19%
2009	$49,491	-4.16%
2010	$49,903	0.83%
2011	$50,492	1.18%
2012	$51,462	1.92%
2013	$51,911	0.87%
2014	$52,296	0.74%
2015	$53,895	3.06%
2016	$54,340	0.83%
2017	$55,023	1.26%
2018	$56,093	1.94%

The US per capita real GDP growth is positive and around 1% for most of the past 12 years. 2008 was the year in which sub-prime mortgage financial crises started triggered by collapse of Lehman Brothers. Its effect started in 2008 of per capita GDP growth, accentuated in 2009 in which it became negative 4%, and then started recovering. US govt. started tax cuts in year 2010 which gave a stimulus to stagnant demand and spendings which in effect improved US economy and hence per capita GDP, as can be seen in per capita GDP growth in years 2011 & 2012. However, in 2012, 2010 Tax Relief Act expired (by which taxes were cut earlier) which resulted in five tax increases and two spending cuts (known as US Fiscal Cliff). This reduced spending in US economy and hence reduced GDP growth in 2013. In 2015, sharp appreciation in US dollar was observed which reduced exports which caused decrease in GDP growth in 2016. After that, Trump took office and introduced various business friendly laws and tax cuts which improved per capita GDP growth.