America’s Big Economic Pictures

The election is coming up. So, it’s a good time to get a clear sense of where the economy is, has been, and is going. These charts and comments provide a quick take on our economic realities, past, current, and future.

What should stand out is that the state of the economy at any point in time is not the achievement or fault of the presiding President or political party in power. The economy runs largely on its own with the impacts of politicians’ actions and inactions, both terrific and terrible, making major, but hard-to-isolate differences years down the road.

Related: Do Financial Planners Plan With the Tools They Use on Their Clients?