It was shortly followed by The Boardwalk Regency, (renamed Caesars in 1983) and Bally’s Park Place in 1979. On the 26th May 1978, in only the second state in the USA to allow legal casinos, Resorts Casino Hotel opened in Atlantic City. The unemployment rate did not fall below 6% until September 1987, well after the technical end of the recession. Over the next few years, the jobless rate slowly receded, falling to 8.3% by the end of 1983 and to 7.2% by the time of the 1984 “Morning in America” Presidential election.
This tightening of monetary policy was compounded by the geo-political crisis caused by the Iranian Revolution and Iran-Iraq war, and subsequent reduction in oil supply, led to inflation peaking at 20.5% With inflation at 11.1% in 1980, The Federal Reserve raised interest rates to slow money supply, which in turn caused a rise in unemployment and the economy to slow. The short recession and recovery in January to June 1980, was followed by a sustained recession from July 1981 to November 1982. The National Bureau for Economic Research cites the “double-dip” as the harshest of the late 20th Century. There were two recessions in the USA in the early 80s, colloquially known as “The Double Dip” Recession.