Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
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The NYT reported that preliminary estimates showed GDP shrank 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the fourth quarter of 2012. This would make the decline in GDP 3.7 percent for 2013 compared with 2012, which it tells readers was smaller than the 4.0 percent decline expected by the I.M.F. While the piece notes that Greece’s cumulative decline since the beginning of the downturn is 23 percent, leading to a 28 percent unemployment rate, it might have also been worth pointing out that the 3.7 percent drop is larger than any decline the U.S. economy has experienced in the last 60 years.