The post-WWII economic boom produced peaks in real per capita GDP growth above 5% for a few years and an average annual growth rate of 3% in the 1950s and 1960s. Per capita growth then dropped to 2.2% during the turbulent inflationary years of the 1970s and averaged just over 2% for the rest of the twentieth century.

Growth was sluggish during the early years of this century following the bursting of the 1990s dotcom tech bubble. Growth turned deeply negative during the Global Financial Crisis and slowly recovered to a 1.7% pace in the 2010s. Recently, growth plunged with the COVID shutdown of supply and then spiked up as the economy reopened, and supply returned. During the 21^st century to date, annualized per capita growth has been only 1.3%, which is less than half the growth of the 1950s and 1960s.