page_title: Economy of the United States
section_title: 21st century
hierarchical_section_title: Economy of the United States / History / 21st century
caption_attribution_description: English: President Donald J. Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence met with key automobile industry leaders in the Roosevelt Room this morning to discuss how we can revive the automobile industry and boost American jobs. Buy American and hire American!
context_page_description: The economy of the United States is that of a developed country with a mixed economy. It is the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and net wealth and the second-largest by purchasing power parity. It has the world's eighth-highest per capita GDP and the tenth-highest per capita GDP in 2019. The United States has the most technologically powerful economy in the world and its firms are at or near the forefront in technological advances, especially in computers, pharmaceuticals, and medical, aerospace, and military equipment. The U.S. dollar is the currency most used in international transactions and is the world's foremost reserve currency, backed by its economy, its military, the petrodollar system and its linked eurodollar and large U.S. treasuries market. Several countries use it as their official currency and in others it is the de facto currency. The largest U.S. trading partners are China, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany, South Korea, United Kingdom, France, India, and Taiwan. The U.S. is the world's largest importer and the second-largest exporter.
context_section_description: 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. 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.
  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, presenting a significant barrier to recovery. Real GDP regained its pre-crisis (late 2007) peak by 2011, household net worth by Q2 2012, non-farm payroll jobs by May 2014, and the unemployment rate by September 2015. 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.
  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 77% of GDP in 2017, which was ranked 43rd highest out of 207 countries. Income inequality peaked in 2007 and fell during the Great Recession, yet still ranked 41st highest among 156 countries in 2017 (i.e., 74% of countries had a more equal income distribution).
caption: President Donald Trump with key automobile industry leaders, 2017
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