Trillion-Dollar Economy: Prosperity Under Strain

Archive Report

America: The World's First Trillionaire

Economy's Approach to Trillion-Dollar Landmark

Sometime late in 1970 or early in 1971, the United States will become the first country in the world to boast a trillion-dollar economy; that is, the gross national product—the market value of goods and services produced in the country in terms of 1970 dollars—will reach $1 trillion at an annual rate.1 It hardly needs saying that such an achievement is prodigious—in particular because it comes barely more than a decade since G.N.P. first reached the $500-billion level. And that is not all: Impact, a weekly business and tax report, predicted on Dec. 22. 1969, that it would not be long before G.N.P. doubled again: “After taking nearly 200 years to log in its first trillion ...

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