US GDP by Year, 1960–2024

Sixty years of US output at a glance

The first chart plots nominal US Gross Domestic Product — the total market value of everything the economy produces in a year — from 1960 to today. The economy grew from $0.54T in 1960 to $28.75T in 2024, a roughly 53× increase in nominal terms. Part of that climb is real growth — more goods and services — and part is simply inflation, since nominal figures are measured in the dollars of each year. That is why the line rises so steeply and so smoothly: even in recession years, higher prices can keep the nominal total climbing. To see the real story, you have to look at the growth rate.

Growth, boom and bust

The second chart shows annual real GDP growth — output adjusted for inflation — and it is far more jagged. Most years sit somewhere between 2% and 5%, but the recessions stand out as dips below the zero line. The deepest is 2009, when the economy shrank -2.58% in the Great Recession, followed by the -2.16% contraction of the 2020 pandemic year. At the other end, 1984 was the fastest year in the record at 7.24%, as the economy rebounded from the early-1980s downturn. Growth has averaged about 3.02% a year across the whole period, but the average hides how uneven the ride has been.

GDP per capita

Total GDP grows partly because the population grows, so economists also track GDP per capita — output divided by the number of people. By that measure the US produced about $84,534 per person in 2024, up from roughly $3,000 in 1960. Per-capita output is a better gauge of average living standards than the headline total, and it makes comparisons across countries of very different sizes more meaningful. It remains an average, though, and tells you nothing about how that output is shared.

What GDP measures (and what it misses)

GDP is the standard yardstick for the size of an economy, but it is a deliberately narrow one. It counts market output — the value of goods and services bought and sold — and not much else. It does not capture how income is distributed, so a rising total can sit alongside stagnant wages for many households. It says nothing about unpaid work, environmental costs, leisure, health or wellbeing. And the headline nominal figure is inflated by rising prices, which is why analysts lean on real growth and per-capita measures. GDP tells you how much the economy produced — not how well off people feel.

Recessions in the record

Every dip below zero in the growth chart is a recession, and each one shows up elsewhere too. When output contracts, employers cut jobs, so the same downturns appear as spikes in the historical unemployment rate — most dramatically in 2009 and 2020, the two deepest contractions here. Reading the two studies together gives a fuller picture: GDP shows the economy shrinking, unemployment shows the human cost, and the recovery in one usually tracks the recovery in the other.