Prompt 1

The period following World War II was marked by sustained economy success in the United States, highlighted by the "golden age of capitalism" in the 1950s only to come to an abrupt end in the 1970s with an uneven recovery in the 1980s. Explain how the basis for this economic success and the impacts the economy had on average Americans through the 1990s.

Introduction- The phrase called the “golden age of capitalism” is the economic growth in American history. That time period happened to take place after WW2, this phrase is known for taking its boom in the 1950’s. This economic growth went from the 1950s' and 60's, ultimately coming to an end in the 1970’s. Then the new phrase that happens is called the “uneven recovery” that takes place in the 1980’s. 

Body One-  The “golden age of capitalism” is what happened post war in the 1950’s. This started a high demand for goods, since after the war the spending of military goods switched over to consumer goods. Some of the goods that were in high demand were Cars, TV’s, and even Radios. The government even made bills to help veterans get back up on their feet after the war. One of those bills was the GI bill, which offered to help them find housing and college tuition for veterans, which led to increasing the middle class all the way up until the 70’s.    

Body Two-  The 1950’s is known as an era that impacted Americans a lot. People were working in more “white collar” jobs, which meant better pay and job opportunities. The more Americans worked in the field of “white collar” the more they could improve their living standards. Neighborhoods and car ownership also took a boom during this era. This all happened from the Interstate Highway system taking place allowing the growth of suburban neighborhoods. The biggest suburban neighborhood was called Levittown with a population of 60,000 people. 

Body Three-  Once the 1970’s came along, the economic growth of America came to an end. An oil crisis took place in 1973, which led to gas shortages and the price of gas increasing. This made inflation go up by 11% and the unemployment rates go up by 6%. In this time period America was also going through competition with other countries which started to hurt American industries.  The “uneven recovery” in the 80’s came along where tax cuts started to take place, this was the main idea of Ronald Reagan policy. The idea was to cut taxes from wealthy businesses to make the economic growth start again. The 90’s is known for their technology growth, from the rise of jobs working with computers and more jobs in the tech industry, ultimately leading to workers to have stagnant pay wages or even become unemployed.  

Conclusion-  Therefore the period after WW2 was a time of economic growth and the start of prosperity for many Americans, but the start of the 70’s is when the economy started to face some challenges. The 1980’s and 1990’s is what brought the stage of uneven recovery, with some Americans benefiting from the growth of the new industries while others were losing their jobs and getting bad pay wages. This long term effect was a more unequal economy that started a gap between the wealthy and the rest of the population.