Major economic expansions in U.S. history
WASHINGTON, March 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. economy will have grown for eight straight years on April 1, marking the second longest expansion on record.
Following is a list of the four longest economic expansions in U.S. history, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, based in Cambridge Mass.:
106 months
The longest expansion was from February 1961 to December 1969, when defense spending for the Vietnam War and domestic outlays on President Lyndon Johnson's ''Great Society'' programs boosted economic growth.
96 months
The second longest economic expansion started in March 1991 and has been described by the Clinton administration as the longest peacetime expansion. U.S. forces have, however, been engaged in conflicts in Somalia, Iraq and now Serbia.
92 months
The expansion from November 1982 to July 1990 came under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. It ended with the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, which dealt a final blow to faltering business confidence.
80 months
Rearmament for the Second World War boosted economic output from June 1938 to February 1945 as the U.S. economy went into overdrive to produce the ships, planes, tanks and weapons to defeat Japan and Nazi Germany.
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