The Reiland Test

Answer True or False to the following statements regarding Ronald Reagan's legacy, the "Decade of Greed,"

1. From 1982 to 1989, 19 million net new jobs were created, two-thirds of them high- or middle-paying, resulting in the lowest unemployment rate in 16 years.

2. The economic growth that flowed from the Reagan tax cuts increased federal tax revenues in the 1980s by $1.1 trillion.

3. These additional federal tax revenues contributed to the reduction of the federal deficit from 6.3% of gross domestic product in 1983 to 2.9% in 1989.

4. Presidents Kennedy and Reagan both enacted supply-side tax cuts on top income earners and job creators, and produced the two longest economic expansions in American history.

5. The Reagan tax cuts trickled down to produce a 76% jump in new business investment in real (adjusted for inflation) dollars in the 1980s and tripled the rate of productivity growth.

6. Real per capita after-tax income rose by 19% in the 1980s, nearly double the rate of the 1970s.

7. Real family income increased every year from 1983 through 1990 in every income group (from the poorest fifth of households to the richest fifth), while median family income fell by 1.9% in 1993.

8. The real income of the poorest fifth of American families increased by 12% in the 1980s, reversing their 17% slide in real income between 1979 and 1983.

9. Eighty-six percent of the tax filers of the poorest fifth of families in 1980 moved out of that bottom quintile by 1988 (16% moved all the way to the top fifth of income earners).

10. Real median income increased only 5% between 1982 and 1988 for those in the top fifth of income earners, but increased 77% for those who started in the bottom fifth.

11. Real family income declined each year from 1979 until 1982 and declined each year since 1991. The Reagan years, sandwiched between those two periods of shrinking income, produced a real increase of $4,877 in median family annual real income.

12. Since 1988, the typical American household has lost $2,344 in real annual income, and the degree of income inequality is now at a post-World War II high.

13. After growing nationwide by 7 million people during the 1970s, the poverty population declined by 4 million during the Reagan years.

14. Poverty in the '90s is on the rise again with over a million Americans falling into poverty in 1993.

15. The top income tax rate was reduced from 70% to 28% in the 1980s, but the top 5 percent of all earners increased their share of all federal income taxes paid, from 36% in 1980 to 43% in 1990.

16. In the 1980s, the percentage of African-American families earning more than 50,000 in real dollars doubled from 7% to 14%

17. In the 1980s, the unemployment rate for black teenagers fell by 21% and black employment in professional and managerial jobs expanded by one-third.

18. After declining 10% between 1978 and 1982, the real median income of black families increased by 17% between 1982 and 1989.

19. The median weekly earnings of female workers grew 8% faster than male earnings in the 1980s.

20. Women entrepreneurs ended the decade of the '80s employing more people than all of the Fortune 500 companies combined.

1. True
2. True
3. True
4. True
5. True
6. True
7. True
8. True
9. True
10. True
11. True
12. True
13. True
14. True
15. True
16. True
17. True
18. True
19. True
20. True

Subtract 5% for each incorrect answer. If you missed more than 12 questions, you may be eligible for an exciting career in journalism!

All information is based on Labor Department and Census Bureau studies and was compiled in an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on November 1, 1994. It was written by Ralph R. Reiland, an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh, PA.