How good was the economy in the 90s?
Posted by estifxy220@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 43 comments
I’ve been researching more about life in the US during the 1990s, and found it interesting that the 90s saw one of the biggest economic booms in US history, with some of the lowest employment rates, low inflation, highest rates of GDP growth, etc. I asked my mom more about it, and she said that the economy in the 90s was “the best economy she has personally ever seen and lived through” in the US (she was born in 1969 for more context). Why was the economy in the 90s so good, and what was it like living under it? Were most Americans really living in economic prosperity?
spartanC-001@reddit
Quite decent. Relative was able to get a CDL for 400 dollars and a three day course, then immediately start making like 80k a year in the oil fields cleaning tankers. It's now a 12,000 dollars and a month long course with a "Good luck, hope you know someone who can get you in somewhere.".
Spiritual_Lemonade@reddit
Things were really expensive. Items cost a lot. Needs cost a lot.
Food was pretty cheap. Gas was cheap
Just to live people needed phone service, cable, later internet, books, CDs, shoes, coats, gifts.
It was ridiculous. I now own very little and basically borrow things for one flat cost monthly. I read digital books or listen, I listen to any music I want for $10.50 a month. My phone is cheap, my wifi is one of the lowest and unlimited.
Gas is crazy but I'm better off in a lot of places
my_metrocard@reddit
Years 1996-99 were awesome in terms of finding employment. I was 18 and making $55k, which went a long way at the time because rents were lower. I was able to pay my way through college.
The dot com bust was painful, but we saw it coming and were prepared financially and emotionally.
___coolcoolcool@reddit
Yes. I was a kid in the 90s and my dad, who only had an associate’s degree, was able to support our family on his own as an IT guy at a hospital. Big house, two cars, stay-at-home mom.
I think one of the reasons it SEEMED especially great is that Americans were making more money than they ever had due to new industries and tech, but we were also SPENDING less money because Americans had shipped manufacturing off to other unregulated countries making everything cheaper than it would have been if it had been made in the USA. I mean, it turned out to be terrible and something we shouldn’t have done, but in the 90s I feel like there was lots more money earned and LOTS more stuff you could buy with it because everything was so cheap.
(I really hope my point made sense!)
jurassicbond@reddit
I feel like we were spending less because we just bought less stuff in general, but maybe it was my social circle. People didn't eat out nearly as often. They would have one or two TVs. PCs weren't that common for much of the 90s. Appliances lasted longer. Smart phones and tablets you upgrade every few years weren't around.
___coolcoolcool@reddit
We were spending less on things so we bought more stuff.
I had a PC in my room starting at the age of four (1991). And I feel like we were one of the first groups of kids who got beanie babies AND easy bake ovens AND bikes AND skateboards AND basketball hoops AND dress-up clothes AND fruit snacks AND candy AND….
shelwood46@reddit
I was in my 20s in the 90s and I don't think that was normal, most families had one PC if they had one at all. Laptops only started becoming commong outside business use towards the end of the decade.
___coolcoolcool@reddit
Yeah, my dad gave us each computers when we were VERY young. It was an old one from the hospital and it only had DOS…he wrote down the commands I needed to know to load my games on it and taped it to the side of the tower. 😂
I know it wasn’t common but it wasn’t unheard of, either. The girl across the street from us had her own little McIntosh computer from her dad’s architecture business too. We pretended to be business ladies and lot!
brbshavingmytoes@reddit
Yeah I had my own computer with broadband/cable modem internet in my room from age 7-8 on (circa 98-99) so there are others like you out there, but that was certainly not the norm. Most families had one computer in a common living area that had dial up internet. My dad was/is also in IT so I'm sure it was more likely for kids whose folks were in the industry/industry adjacent.
tlollz52@reddit
The 1 TV cost as much as the two tvs now thoughs
Eric848448@reddit
More like five. Have you seen how cheap some of these things are these days?!
shelwood46@reddit
Before accounting for inflation.
max_m0use@reddit
In the 90s, our whole family of four could eat at McDonald's once a week for under $20. We could get two large pizzas from Little Caesar's (Pizza! Pizza!) for $10 and feed the family for an entire weekend. We were middle class on a single income, and we had four TVs in our house at one point. My parents bought their house for $30,000 in the 80s and paid it off by the time I was in high school.
im-on-my-ninth-life@reddit
No it didn't? Poor countries aren't gonna become rich from charitable donations, they need the jobs
kolejack2293@reddit
wages actually hit a modern low in the 1990s
Subvet98@reddit
My first year in IT are more than my parents had in the last 2 years.
Leucippus1@reddit
The modern internet was invented in 1991, by 2000 everyone had a website. We are unlikely to see such rapid expansion in technology again in the near future. It is hard to describe if you didn't experience it yourself; but even more than smartphones the internet/digital/PC revolution created jobs that had simply not existed before. No one was a 'web developer' in 1985. It is not necessarily clear how an unreliable AI actually helps us right now, ML has been used in scientific applications for years now to success but it is nowhere near as wide ranging as the initial tech revolution. This is mainly because one computer with an SQL database was plainly superior to paper records in most ways imaginable. So literally every company was out buying applications to run their businesses. It used to be laborious to produce a report based on ledgers. With Lotus 1-2-3 (and later and presently Excel) you could do it in seconds. It was so prevalent that when there was a math error in the Intel chips, accountants (the early adopters) were the ones that detected it because they audited the results against their old HP reverse polish notation financial calculators. RPN is awesome, by the way.
In short, there was a massive shift and churn, and that drove the economy bonkers. It wasn't all good, blue collar people in the rust belt were still getting laid off as their jobs were getting outsourced to cheaper labor markets. I know, I lived in the rust belt during that time. People wonder why the kids were angry at Woodstock, part of it was because a lot of their dads lost their hitherto reliable jobs. People lost all of their retirement savings. I used to work with former pilots at Target on the overnight shift that had lost almost all of their retirement savings because, frankly, Reagan happened. People still lost the family farm. Just like today, we talk a good game but don't think twice about squashing the common man/woman.
JulesInIllinois@reddit
The 90's and early 2000's saw a strong economy. Ppl were prospering.
Appropriate-Food1757@reddit
Mid to late 90’s was so glorious.
cries in 2025
Mammoth_Ad_4806@reddit
YMMV. A lot of people talk about living well off one income, but just like any other era… it depended on what that income was. My in-laws lived on one income (FIL was an electrical engineer), and lived somewhat comfortably. My father was the only income (union diesel mechanic) and barely made ends meet, usually needing a second job to make the rent.
kolejack2293@reddit
Wages for the bottom 25% of americans have been rapidly rising since the mid 2010s, and especially since the pandemic. This idea that the lower class has just continuously gotten poorer is just... not true. There was a period after the great recession where wages for the bottom 50% were far too low, but that rapidly reversed. Today, the bottom 25% of americans make 15-16% more than they did in 2015 adjusted for inflation.
petrock85@reddit
We are now better off in absolute terms:
Inflation-adjusted per capita GDP was 40% higher at the end of 2024 compared to the end of 1999. Source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA
Only 75% of US households had air conditioning in 1999, which subsequently rose to 89%. Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/technology-adoption-by-households-in-the-united-states
Why would people think the economy is worse now?
You may remember the best aspects of the past, but focus on current problems when thinking about the present.
Social media now makes it easy for people to show off wealth (which might be fake!) making you seem poor by comparison.
Even though the average is better now, some people are still doing quite poorly.
Housing prices have risen faster than incomes, so a young person looking for their first home now has more difficulty than an older person who bought a house in the 1990s or earlier.
kolejack2293@reddit
People really do not want to hear this. Median household income, adjusted for inflation, is much, much higher than it was. By almost every measure, we are doing better. We have more cars, bigger houses, more entertainment options, more educated, more healthcare access etc.
I don't think people realize that even something like buying a TV was a major expense for a middle class home back then. I remember we got a 27 inch TV for 600 bucks in the early 1990s, which would be like 1,200-1,300 today. And this was at a time when incomes were around 50-55k instead of 80k like they are now (in 2024 dollars).
You can get a 52 inch 4k TV today for like 100 bucks.
You might say "but TVs arent important like rent and food" but the reality is that pretty much every single household in the US has a TV. That is an extra 1,000 bucks in our wallets to spend on rent and food.
TheRealRollestonian@reddit
The 90s were pretty great, but there was a housing bust at the beginning of the decade, and the dot-com collapse at the end was not fun.
Geopolitics were pretty good because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, although Bosnia, Serbia, and Iraq might disagree.
In the US, there was an upsurge in domestic terrorism. Oklahoma City, Ruby Ridge, Branch Davidians, Atlanta Olympics bombing, etc. Although it did give us Will Ferrell's impression of Janet Reno, which is still amazing. If you haven't seen Janet Reno's Dance Party, do it now.
kolejack2293@reddit
The 1990s saw a few very brutal hotspots, but the era of widespread cold war proxy wars was over. Overall, global conflict deaths for the 1990s were 15 per 1,000,000 people (half of which were in Rwanda). In the 1960s-1980s it was around 60 per 1,000,000 people, but it was spread out over easily 3-4 times as many countries.
We are, unfortunately, back to that previous era. Myanmar, Sudan, Ethiopia, Ukraine, Gaza, Azerbaijan-Armenia, Lebanon, Syria, the Congo etc. So far, the 2020s have averaged around 50 per 1,000,000.
kolejack2293@reddit
Unemployment overall was... okay. It got very low in 1998-1999 but was moderate for the rest of the decade. Inflation was the same way. It was actually quite high (5-6%) in the early part of the decade.
The big issue was wages. Wages hit their lowest point in modern history in the 1990s. People really don't often mention this part because wages are, for some reason, not commonly mentioned in economic statistics, despite being arguably the most important measure out there. Part of this is that the period from the 1970s-1990s saw a lot of media stop reporting on wages, because if they did, it would show pretty continuous decline and might inspire an era of deep pessimism.
But the result of that is now we have the opposite. Wages are at record highs as of 2024, and media doesn't report on it. Its not a statistic that Americans have in their general knowledge.
Deep_Joke3141@reddit
Don’t forget there was much worse inflation in the 70s and a very big global downturn in the early 80s so our boomer parents lived through some really shitty times, probably worse than today; their reference frame is much different than genxyz. The 90s had ups and downs but I’m not convinced they were the best. A lot of what is happening now is due to the 2018 recession, which basically halted house building for several years. We are now feeling the effects of this, which is driving up home prices due to simple supply and demand. This is helping to drive inflation. You can also thank our leaders from the 2016 administration for intentionally keeping interest rates low so the economy would grow faster than we’re used to. We are now feeling the effects of the hot economy. We don’t want a hot economy, working people need a chance to catch up. My feeling is that if companies want to use our soil and people to maximize profits, they need to pay a “rent” that is similar in scale to what people are paying today. Corporations don’t deserve to take everything and not take care of the hard working stewards of our country, the tax payers. Companies used to pay way more in taxes back in the good old days. They shouldn’t be allowed to do business in the US if they’re not paying at least 30% of their revenue.
Fit_General_3902@reddit
Tech was huge, internet startups were huge, the government was run better. There was a lot of opportunity in tech and internet-based companies because the market wasn't flooded yet.
RGV_KJ@reddit
Very good. Bill Clinton was highly successful.
Throw-It-Away-989@reddit
And all the boomer men hated him and went wacko. I'll never understand it.
My dad was a car dealer and was able to get us a nice house and cars etc. He's actually been struggling ever since the Trump era started yet he loves him. I dont get it.
Eric848448@reddit
It’s easy. He loves hating The Other more than he loves his own success.
sakuragi59357@reddit
It's all about feelings. Seems like 47 bricks your dad up.
thestereo300@reddit
Yeah it was nuts.
People were job hopping like crazy. There were jobs all over the place. An entire new industry was born.
Sure there were IT workers before the 90s but new tech and the world wide web changed the industry in a huge way.
TillPsychological351@reddit
We formalized free trade agreements with Canada and Mexico... we sure as hell didn't prosper by raising tariffs on them. A guess a certain "businessman" turned politician was too busy in bankruptcy court, after his Atlantic City mini-empire collapsed, to notice.
Supermac34@reddit
We had a really good economy. We also had pretty decent governance. We mostly had a conservative, Republican legislature with a Democrat President. It was before the huge divide, when everyone was sort of in the middle politically and they all just sort of worked together and compromised to get stuff done.
It also was about 20 years after the last major inflationary event (Jimmy Carter years), so the stability in prices had really allowed people to understand cost of living and adjust accordingly without wild swings for almost 2 decades.
Wolf_E_13@reddit
The economy was good but a good economy doesn't mean everyone or even most people are living in "prosperity".
pinniped90@reddit
I entered the workforce in 1994. I was a young guy working at an IT consulting firm where base pay was not high but the perks and bonuses were good.
My rent right out of school was $450 for a decent place. I could afford a decent car. My job had me traveling so I accumulated enough airline miles to facilitate some good personal travel. I didn't have many expenses or real needs. I put 15% of my gross into a 401k. I had a good career path that ultimately put me on the path to where I am today, which I'm happy with.
So yeah, the 90s were pretty good - even though I wasn't directly in the dotcom part of the economy that went so bonkers (and then crashed).
vaspost@reddit
Started a tech job after graduating college in 96. In 99 I posted my resume to see if I could find something better and my phone blew up with offers.
Danibear285@reddit
Nostalgia blindness for when the United States was blissful
Gladyskravitz99@reddit
I was an adult in the 90s and was pretty poor throughout most of that decade. But I think I felt poorer than I actually was because everyone around me was making money and living high on the hog. It's easier to be poor when everyone else is too, you know?
So yeah, I'd say the economy seemed good even from an individual perspective.
RodeoBob@reddit
Kinda?
I mean, on the one hand, Clinton raised taxes, especially on the upper brackets. He also did some symbolic "luxury item" taxes on things like yachts. And there were some pretty big cuts in government spending, so interest rates were low, making it very affordable to borrow money for things like mortgages, student loans, and business loans.
You also say a growth in buying power, especially on frequent consumer goods. Fast food in the '80s was fast, but it wasn't really cheap. The 90's saw things like Dollar Menus and really cheap fast food. It also saw some really big growth in WalMart, which made a lot of consumer goods available at really low prices.
Unfortunately, at the same time, we saw the rise of HMOs and really expensive health care costs, both directly and through really high health insurance premiums. Businesses were lowering prices to consumers but also cutting their own costs in payroll; this was the decade when "full time employment" in retain and hospitality stopped meaning 40 hours a week in 5 shifts, and became 28-32 hours a week, with 3-4 shifts, but with management retaining the option to call you in for more shifts or make you stay later. (also, schedules started becoming much more irregular, with employees no longer working set routines but having schedules changed every two weeks or weekly) There was a joke that "Clinton's economy added 110,000 jobs last month... and I'm working three of them!"
throwfar9@reddit
There was a short, sharp recession in 1991-92. People still remembered the disastrous one from the early 80s, so the 90s one wasn’t a big deal. I do remember reading that about 2 million white collar managers lost their jobs forever since dozens of control were adjusting upward as long/distance calling and air fares got cheaper , and done forward thinking companies put in LANs and internal e-mail. My Fortune 500 marketing department whacked two director-level positions. There was no need for them as what hey had mostly been going was just passing information up and down the chain.
That was also the era when 1980s pushes to institute just-in-time manufacturing really bit. Global supply chains were being set up. Easier with the Cold War over, and ops research consultants doing massive trucking and train optimizations. Jobs were created, jobs were destroyed. But the new jobs were more knowledge economy and less physical labor, such as dockworkers.
By 1997 or 98 unemployment was rock bottom. You could get a job in a day, no problem. Companies were begging for labor. And inflation had been defeated in the 80s. It was truly a golden era to be a young adult, as I was.
G00dSh0tJans0n@reddit
First, the government cut spending and raised taxes and was not borrowing as much which freed up capital for businesses. Second, tech was booming and actually what follows a boom? A bust. The dot-com bust was a correction to the over-growth of the 90s into tech.