Early 1980s recession

Global economic recession
Globally, while some countries experienced downturns in economic output in 1980 and/or 1981, the broadest and sharpest worldwide decline of economic activity and the largest increase in unemployment was in 1982, with the World Bank naming the recession the "global recession of 1982". As with other G7 countries, Canada had two separate economic contractions in the early 1980s. although both contractions were driven by the same desire of governments to reduce inflation by increasing interest rates. Real Canadian GDP declined by 5% during the 17 month 1981 82 recession with the unemployment rate peaking at 12%. In between the two downturns, Canada had 12 months of economic growth. With growth between October 1980 and June 1981 being relatively robust with the total GDP and employment in June 1981 actually surpassing their pre recession peaks While inflation accelerated across North America in the late 1970s, it was higher in Canada because of the US decision to switch to a floating exchange rate, which lowered the value of the Canadian dollar to US$0.85 by 1979, which made US imports more expensive for Canadians to purchase. Canada's inflation rate was 10.2% for 1980 overall, rising to 12.5% for 1981 and 10.8% for 1982 before dropping to 5.8% for 1983. To control its inflation, the US introduced credit controls producing a slump in demand for Canada's housing and auto industry exports in early 1980 thereby triggering the early first portion of the recession in Canada. By the start of 1982, however, Alberta's oil boom had ended due to over expansion and the deep global recession of that year, which caused oil prices to plummet, with Alberta then suffering a drop of 7.2 percentage points in its employment ratio of all the provinces by mid 1983. Thatcher set about controlling inflation with monetarist policies and changing trade union legislation in an attempt to reduce the strikes of public sector workers. Thatcher's battle against inflation raised the exchange rate, resulting in the closure of many factories, shipyards and coal pits because imports were cheaper and the strong pound made British products more expensive in export markets. Inflation fell below 10% by the turn of 1982, having peaked at 22% in 1980, and by spring 1983, it had fallen to a 15 year low of 4%. Strikes were also at their lowest level since the early 1950s, and wage growth rose to 3.8% by 1983. However, unemployment reached 12.5% of the workforce by January 1982, a level that had not been seen for some 50 years. The unemployment rate remained similarly high for a number of years afterwards. Northern Ireland was the hardest hit region, with unemployment standing at nearly 20%. The rate exceeded 15% in much of Scotland and Northern England. By April 1983, Britain became a net importer of goods for the first time in modern times. Areas of Tyneside, Yorkshire, Merseyside, South Wales, Western Scotland and the West Midlands were hit hard by the loss of industry and subsequent sharp rise in unemployment. Only in Southeast England did unemployment remain below 10%. Despite the economic recovery that followed the early 1980s recession, unemployment in the United Kingdom barely fell until the second half of the decade. As late as 1986, unemployment exceeded 3 million, but it fell below that figure the following year. By the end of 1989, it had fallen to 1.6 million.

The mass unemployment and social discontent resulting from the recession were widely seen as major factors in widespread rioting across Britain in 1981 in parts of towns and cities including Toxteth, Liverpool, as well as a number of districts of London. In 1985, the economy had been out of recession for three years, but unemployment remained stubbornly high. Another wave of rioting occurred across numerous areas of Britain, including several areas across London. Poor employment opportunities, and social discontent were once again seen as factors in the rioting.

In the UK, economic growth was re established by the end of 1982, but the era of mass unemployment was far from over. By the summer of 1984, unemployment had hit a new record of 3.3 million although the Great Depression had seen a higher percentage of the workforce unemployed. It remained above the 3 million mark until the spring of 1987, when the Lawson Boom, seen as the consequence of tax cuts by Chancellor Nigel Lawson, sparked an economic boom that saw unemployment fall dramatically. By early 1988, it was below 2.5 million; by early 1989, it fell below 2 million. By the end of 1989, it was just over 1.6 million, almost half the figure of three years earlier. However, the unemployment figures did not include benefit claimants who were placed on Employment Training schemes, an adult variant of the controversial Youth Training Scheme, who were paid the same rate of benefit for working full time hours. Other incentives that aided the British economic recovery after the early 1980s recession included the introduction of enterprise zones on deindustrialised land in which traditional industries were replaced by new industries as well as commercial developments. Businesses were given temporary tax breaks, and exemptions as incentives to set up base in such areas.

Like Canada, the early 1980s recession in the United States technically consisted of two separate downturns, one commencing in January 1980 which yielded to modest growth in July 1980 with a deeper downturn from July 1981 to November 1982. One cause was the Federal Reserve's contractionary monetary policy, which sought to rein in the high inflation. In the wake of the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis, stagflation began to afflict the economy.

Unemployment had risen from 5.1% in January 1974 to a high of 9.0% in May 1975. Although it had gradually declined to 5.6% by May 1979, unemployment began rising again. It jumped sharply to 6.9% in April 1980 and to 7.5% in May 1980. A mild recession from January to July 1980 kept unemployment high, but despite economic recovery, it remained at historically high levels (about 7.5%) until the end of 1981. In mid 1982, Rockford, Illinois, had the highest unemployment of all metro areas, at 25%. In September 1982, Michigan led the nation with 14.5%, Alabama was second with 14.3%, and West Virginia was third with 14.0%. The Youngstown–Warren Metropolitan Area had an 18.7% rate, the highest of all metro areas, and Stamford, Connecticut, had the lowest unemployment, at 3.5%. The peak of the recession occurred in November and December 1982, when the nationwide unemployment rate was 10.8%, the highest since the Great Depression. In November, West Virginia and Michigan had the highest unemployment with 16.4%, Alabama was in third with 15.3%. South Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, with 5.6%. Flint, Michigan, had the highest unemployment rate of all metro areas, with 23.4%. In March 1983, West Virginia's unemployment rate hit 20.1%. In spring 1983, thirty states had double digit unemployment. When Reagan was re elected in 1984, the latest unemployment numbers (August 1984) showed that West Virginia still had the highest rate in the nation (13.6%) followed by Mississippi (11.1%) and Alabama (10.9%).

Inflation, which had averaged 3.2% annually since World War II had more than doubled after the 1973 oil shock, to a 7.7% annual rate. Inflation reached 9.1% in 1975, the highest rate since 1947. Inflation declined to 5.8% the following year but then edged higher. By 1979, inflation reached a startling 11.3% and in 1980, it soared to 13.5%. A brief recession occurred in 1980. Several key industries, including housing, steel manufacturing, and automobiles, experienced a downturn from which they did not recover until the end of the next recession. Many of the economic sectors that supplied the basic industries were also hit hard. Each period of high unemployment saw the Federal Reserve increase interest rates to reduce high inflation. Each time, once inflation fell and interest rates were lowered, unemployment slowly fell. Determined to wring inflation out of the economy, Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker slowed the rate of growth of the money supply and raised interest rates. The federal funds rate, which was about 11% in 1979, rose to 20% by June 1981. The prime interest rate, an important economic measure, eventually reached 21.5% in June 1982.

The recession came at a bad time for banks because of a recent wave of deregulation. The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 had phased out a number of restrictions on their financial practices, broadened their lending powers, and raised the deposit insurance limit from $40,000 to $100,000, which caused moral hazard. Banks rushed into real estate lending, speculative lending, and other ventures as the economy soured. By mid 1982, the number of bank failures was rising steadily. Bank failures reached 42, the highest since the depression, as both the recession and high interest rates took their toll. By the end of the year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) had spent $870 million to purchase bad loans in an effort to keep various banks afloat. In July 1982, the US Congress enacted the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982, which further deregulated banks, savings and loans. The Act authorized banks to begin offering money market accounts in an attempt to encourage deposit in flows, and it also removed additional statutory restrictions in real estate lending and relaxed loans to one borrower limits. That encouraged a rapid expansion in real estate lending while the real estate market was collapsing, increased the unhealthy competition between banks, savings and loans, and encouraged too many branches to be started.

The recession also significantly exacerbated the savings and loan crisis. In 1980, there were approximately 4590 state and federally chartered savings and loan institutions (S&Ls), with total assets of $616 billion. From 1979, they began losing money because of spiraling interest rates. Net S&L income, which had totaled $781 million in 1980, fell to a loss of $4.6 billion in 1981 and a loss of $4.1 billion in 1982. The tangible net worth for the entire S&L industry was virtually zero. The FHLBB relied heavily on its persuasive powers and the US states to enforce banking regulations. One consequence of the FHLBB's lack of enforcement abilities was the promotion of deregulation and of aggressive, expanded lending to forestall insolvency. In November 1980, the FHLBB lowered net worth requirements for federally insured S&Ls from 5% of deposits to 4%. The FHLBB lowered net worth requirements again to 3% in January 1982. Additionally, the agency required S&Ls to meet those requirements only over 20 years. The rule meant that S&Ls less than 20 years old had practically no capital reserve requirements. That encouraged extensive chartering of new S&Ls since a $2 million investment could be leveraged into $1.3 billion in lending. As the risk exposure of S&Ls expanded, the economy slid into the recession. Soon, hundreds of S&Ls were insolvent. Between 1980 and 1983, 118 S&Ls with $43 billion in assets failed. The Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, the federal agency which insured the deposits of S&Ls, spent $3.5 billion to make depositors whole again (in comparison, only 143 S&Ls with $4.5 billion in assets had failed in the previous 45 years, costing the FSLIC $306 million). Federal action initially caused the problem by allowing institutions to get involved in creating wealth by unhealthy fractional reserve practices, lending out much more money than they could ever afford to pay back out to customers if they came to withdraw their money. That ultimately led to S&Ls' failure. Later, the government's inaction worsened the industry's problems. Responsibility for handling the S&L crisis lay with the Cabinet Council on Economic Affairs (CCEA), an intergovernmental council located within the Executive Office of the President. At the time, the CCEA was chaired by Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. The CCEA pushed the FHLBB to refrain from re regulating the S&L industry and adamantly opposed any governmental expenditures to resolve the S&L problem. Furthermore, the Reagan administration did not want to alarm the public by closing a large number of S&Ls. Such actions significantly worsened the S&L crisis.

The recession was nearly a year old before President Ronald Reagan stated on October 18, 1981, that the economy was in a "slight recession". The recession coupled with budget cuts, which were enacted in 1981 but began to take effect only in 1982, led many voters to believe that Reagan was insensitive to the needs of average citizens and favored the wealthy. Pressured to counteract the increased deficit caused by the recession, Reagan agreed to a corporate tax increase in 1982. However, he refused to raise income tax or to cut defense spending. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 instituted a three year, $100 billion tax hike, the largest tax increase since the Second World War.

According to Keynesian economists, a combination of deficit spending and the lowering of interest rates would slowly lead to economic recovery. Many economists also insist that the significantly lower tax rates significantly contributed to the recovery. From a high of 10.8% in December 1982, unemployment gradually improved until it fell to 7.2% on Election Day in 1984. Inflation fell from 10.3% in 1981 to 3.2% in 1983. Corporate income rose by 29% in the July–September quarter of 1983, compared with the same period in 1982. Some of the most dramatic improvements came in industries that were the hardest hit by the recession, such as paper and forest products, rubber, airlines, and the auto industry.