American Decades

Important Events in Business and the Economy, 1980–1989

Clothing manufacturer Calvin Klein features Brooke Shields in ads, launching a designer jeans fad.
Low-fare People Express Airline, founded by Donald Barr, begins no-frills service in the Northeast.
United Steelworkers and big steel manufacturers attempt to revitalize the steel industry by creating labor-management participation teams in imitation of Japanese practices.
AT&T begins a telephone 900 service.
AT&T is convicted of antitrust violations and fined $1.8 billion.
The prime interest rate averages 15.26 percent.
Inflation averages 12.5 percent, the highest in thirty-three years despite high interest rates to contract the money supply.
Unemployment averages 7.1 percent.
Japanese investors operate some 225 U.S. manufacturing firms.
On January 1, the average car costs $7,574.
On February 8, President Jimmy Carter...

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