Chart of the Day: The Economy Grew 1.9% in Obama’s Final Quarter

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Economic growth continued to be OK but not great at the end of 2016, growing at an annualized rate of 1.9 percent in the final quarter:

For the record, GDP grew from $14.4 trillion to $18.9 trillion under President Obama’s watch. Adjusted for inflation and population growth, that’s an increase in real per-capita GDP of 10 percent, or 1.25 percent per year. For comparison, here’s a chart of all OECD countries over the past eight years:

This isn’t adjusted for inflation, but it still gives you an idea of how things have been going around the world since the end of the Great Recession and how we compare. In case you’re curious, the two countries above us are Norway and Switzerland.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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