STAGFLATION AND THE 1980 ELECTION.

STAGFLATION AND THE 1980 ELECTION. Ronald Reagan in the 1980 Presidential campaign famously asked, “Are you better off now than you four years ago?” It has been considered to have been a powerful argument against the incumbent, Jimmy Carter. Paul Krugman pointed out here that people were indeed better off in 1980 than they had been in 1976 if one measured by real median household income. But people in 1980 were not looking at income per capita. People hated both high unemployment and high inflation, and they hated the combination (stagflation).