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US work hours fell by 10.7% between 1950 and 1979, though the decline was still around half that of Western Europe. In 1980, the American standard of living was the highest among the industrial countries, according to the OECD. Out of the 85 million households in the United States, 64% owned their own living quarters, 55% had at least two TV ...
The economic history of the United States spans the colonial era through the 21st century. The initial settlements depended on agriculture and hunting/trapping, later adding international trade, manufacturing, and finally, services, to the point where agriculture represented less than 2% of GDP .
The United States helped form a strong military alliance in NATO in 1949 including most of the nations of Western Europe, and Canada. In Asia, however, there was much more movement. The United States failed to negotiate a settlement between its ally, nationalist China under Chiang Kai-shek, and the communists under Mao Zedong.
The Midwestern and Western United States became urban majority in the 1910s, while the Southern United States only became urban-majority after World War II, in the 1950s. [2] The Western U.S. is the most urbanized part of the country today, followed closely by the Northeastern United States.
This is a list of countries showing past life expectancy, ranging from 1950 to 2015 in five-year periods, as estimated by the 2017 revision of the World Population Prospects database by the United Nations Population Division. Life expectancy equals the average number of years a person born in a given country is expected to live if mortality ...
From 1972 to 1978, industrial productivity increased by only 1% a year (compared with an average growth rate of 3.2% from 1948 to 1955), while the standard of living in the United States fell to fifth in the world, with Denmark, West Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland surging ahead. [51]
The GDR faced insolvency in the early 1980s, but was able to delay bankruptcy through negotiating oil imports with the Soviet Union and export loans from France and Austria. [16] A debt crisis was again averted through loans approved by West Germany in 1983 and 1984, in exchange for which the GDR agreed to loosen travel restrictions between the ...
The expansion was interrupted in the United States by five recessions (1948–49, 1953–54, 1957–58, 1960–61, and 1969–70). $200 billion in war bonds matured, and the G.I. Bill financed a well-educated work force. The middle class swelled, as did GDP and productivity. The US underwent its own golden age of economic growth.